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Brompton has warned against lifting tariffs on Chinese bikes and parts as the UK’s biggest bike maker predicts cheaper imports could “kill” business.

The UK government is reviewing tariffs inherited from the EU after Brexit – including measures that restrict Chinese bikes and parts. In May last year, the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) – the body responsible for investigations – recommended that ministers eliminate tariffs on imports of Chinese e-bikes, saying it would save UK up to £ 51 million per year.

“I don’t need the government to support me (with specific support for the bicycle industry). I don’t need them to kill me, you know? SAYS Brompton chief executive Will Butler-Adams.

Speaking to the Financial Times ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ visit to Beijing, where she is expected to visit a Brompton store, Butler-Adams said the move could lead to 600 redundancies at the company’s factory in west of London.

He said the removal of tariffs could mean a flood of cheaper Chinese imports that would hit a company already struggling with post-pandemic stagnation in demand for bicycles.

Brompton’s earnings for the year to March 2024 reduced by 99 per cent to just £4,602 up from almost £11m last year. Its turnover fell 5 per cent to £122.6mn.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve seen the cost of a bike drop 40 percent because the market (has excess stock),” Butler-Adams said.

Excess inventory and discounting led to an increase in bankruptcies among bicycle manufacturers. “People are broke. If you’re selling a bike at a discount, you’re losing, so you can’t sustain the industry,” he said.

Although bicycle sales soared during the lockdown, demand has since fallen and the UK bicycle industry has been riddled with insolvencies. Mercian, Orange Mountain Bikes and P Bairstow are among the manufacturers that have stopped selling since the end of the pandemic.

Butler-Adams, who has led Brompton since 2008, said the government needed to “think more strategically” to prevent further closures. “We know that in the rest of Europe, these tariffs remain . . . That’s all we’re asking for here — a level playing field,” he added.

Butler-Adams acknowledged that China is now Brompton’s biggest market, in part, because of the lack of trade barriers the Chinese government has imposed on British imports.

However, he said it was “sophisticated, well-organized and well-resourced (Chinese competitors)” to enter a competitive UK market space.

Butler-Adams also raised concerns about the safety of Chinese imports: “Bicycles are not toys. If they transgress, they can kill a person; this is not a joke,” he said.

“When you start thinking about e-bikes, you think about lithium batteries,” he said, blaming a series of fires caused by e-bike batteries around the world on “low quality, unregulated bicycles imported illegally from China or Vietnam.”

“If we have a sophisticated audit system (the safety concerns are unfounded) . . . But the guy at the port doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know the bike standards,” he added.

The business has raised £19mn by May 2023 in a funding round led by BGF, a UK investment fund backed by five major banks, to repay debt and support brand growth.

Butler-Adams’ aim is to move the company to its new headquarters in Ashford, Kent, by 2029 – two years later than originally expected. The expansion, he said, will allow the business to hit £250 million in turnover, up from £122.6 million in 2024 and increase staff by 1,500.

The Department for Business and Trade said: “No decision has yet been made on specific tariffs – but the independent TRA is there to ensure our tariffs work for our economy.”

The TRA said all investigations were conducted in accordance with World Trade Organization and domestic legislation and that it submitted its recommendation on Chinese e-bikes after a “robust economic assessment based on available evidence.” “.