Reporting ASB
Why report ASB?
Most of us living in either Egham or Englefield Green will have had reason to report Anti-social behaviour (ASB) at some time and it is quite likely that the perpetrators of the incident reported would have been students of Royal Holloway college. Unfortunately, many residents are now suffering from ‘reporting fatigue’ and feel that nothing ever changes in response to complaints submitted to Royal Holloway. However, there are three good reasons why it is important to continue to submit reports of ASB:
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, reporting an issue that is affecting you is the action most likely to bring a resolution to, and relief from, that issue. If you don’t report it then it’s unlikely that anything will happen.
Secondly, any long term solution that is likely to be put in place to prevent or tackle these problems needs evidence to implement and numbers count. So, reporting all of the issues that affect you will help to build up a bigger picture of the size and locations of problems in the area so that our Councillors and authorities can use this evidence to help argue a case for appropriate measures.
Thirdly, if your initial report does not result in a cessation of the problem, there are further steps that can be taken in the form of an ASB Case Review (formerly known as a Community Trigger). However, for that to happen, there needs to be a short history of previous incidents being reported so, by reporting all incidents in the first place, then you would have already completed that step.
Unfortunately, reporting ASB has been easier said than done.
Confusingly, ASB can be reported to either Runnymede Borough Council (RBC) or Surrey Police and each has a separate reporting section on its website. Further, if you read both websites it appears that neither party seems able to clearly define what constitutes ASB or who it should be reported to. It should be remembered though, that ASB caused by students of Royal Holloway is only one aspect of the ASB that the police and borough council have to deal with. It is however, the one type of ASB that Royal Holloway college has a role in addressing.
If you have an incident of student ASB to report, the last thing you want is to have your report rejected by one agency with a suggestion that you send it to a second agency and then start all over again with the second agency’s online reporting tool – putting up with the ASB is bad enough! Fortunately though, there is an e-mail address for each of Surrey Police, Royal Holloway’s community department, RBC’s Community Safety team and RBC’s Environmental Health department.
How to report
The easiest way to report an incident of student ASB is to simply send a single e-mail and include all four addresses in the ‘To:’ line of your e-mail. Those e-mail addresses are:
| Surrey Police: | contactcentre@surrey.police.uk |
| Royal Holloway: | community@rhul.ac.uk |
| RBC Community: | safer.runnymede@runnymede.gov.uk |
| RBC Environmental Health: | environmentalhealth@runnymede.gov.uk |
Try to make sure that your report includes:
- The date and time of the incident
- Where the incident took place
- What happened
- How the incident affected you
and ends by requesting an incident number along the lines of:
‘Can you please acknowledge receipt of my report and provide me with a reference number?’
Why report this way?
Sending a single e-mail to all agencies is simple and easy for the resident and ensures that it is received by whichever of them them has responsibility for addressing the issue in question thus removing any ambiguity. All four meet monthly to share the data on student-related incidents anyway, and so your e-mail will simply ensure that each party already has all of the information about the incident and is able to record it in their own records.
Ending your report with a request for an acknowledgement and incident number will indicate which agency has taken the lead on your report in that case, and the number will help you to refer to it at a later date if you need to.