This is not the image we need for Portsmouth

WELCOME to Portsmouth, Katharine Barker – and what a lovely birthday present this was for you too! Katharine, her partner and eight-year-old son, were in Portsmouth to take a long overdue and Covid-rescheduled trip to Saint-Malo in France on the ferry.

As they stopped in Commercial Road to exchange some money in the Cascades Shopping Centre, unfortunately nobody had warned them about our world-beating bike thieves.

So brazen was said thief, he snatched the £2,000 bike while Katharine, a keen cyclist, was actually standing right next to it.

Sadly, being a decent person, she was too shocked to react quickly enough to stop him from making his getaway.

As a city we are rightly proud of touting our world class attractions – the Historic Dockyards with The Mary, HMS Victory, HMS Warrior et al; The Spinnaker Tower boasts fine views across The Solent and over the city. On a clear day you could probably see a bike thief in action in Fratton from the viewing platform.

But if this is the best welcome we can give a visitor, it’s not going to win the city any tourism awards any time soon.

‘Quickest way to traumatise a visitor to your city’ is definitely not a title we want to be picking up any time soon.

Social media is full of people telling tales of woe about how their bike has been stolen. Granted, it's rarely quite this brazen, but neighbourhood group pages often feature CCTV shots of these crooks in action –doing their best to liberate the bicycle from the lock its owner has used.

Now think about what Katharine is going to tell people about her time in Portsmouth when she returns home to Bristol. It’s not going to be a glowing reference, is it?

Come on, Portsmouth, we can be better than this!