Post 13 – Update | Councillor’s Surgery Debrief
For those of you that belong to the sister WhatsApp Group, * now called Forum – We Need To Talk About Royal Holloway*** you will already know that I and others found Saturday’s surgery frustrating. I have subsequently sent an email to our councillors to highlight to them some of the points that we think should be raised in their forthcoming meeting with RHUL this Tuesday.
Instead of summarising the email, I thought it would be easier to share it with you here below.
Pour yourself another gin, it’s a long one…
Best
A Gnat
Hi Andrea, Marisa, Abby, Nigel, Nick
Thanks for holding Saturday’s surgery to discuss student ASB. It was the first surgery I have attended and I was happy to see some of the issues in this multi-layered problem were discussed in some detail over it being a forum for a general moan.
I was also happy to sense that you, Andrea, Abby, Marisa wanted to find solutions to the problem. Nigel I hope your son’s birthday celebrations went well; I am not sure as to your position on student ASB but I hope you too want to find a solution. Nick, I am not sure as to why you did not attend, whether your absence was strategic or not, but I do think it was a wise choice as some wanted your blood.
Though I felt the conversation was on the whole good, I also found it very frustrating. Marisa, you opened proceedings by highlighting that the points raised in the discussion would be taken to RHUL at tomorrow’s meeting. However, the meeting was chaired in such a way that the majority of the time was then spent on discussing aspects outside of RHUL’s control. Admittedly, some of the more vocal participants, and the audience in general, were happy to discuss these points but it has led me to write to you today.
On Tuesday, can you please communicate to RHUL that they have a responsibility to enforce their conduct policy on the minority of students that are persistently anti-social. Alex Balkan is my RHUL pen pal and if you need an anecdote on how to manage a problematic student HMO badly please ask him to recall his No. 76 St Jude’s Road file between Sept 2021 and August 2022. I appreciate that the students are RHUL’s clients and that RHUL may find it difficult to reprimand them – but as in all business you will have to deal with bad clients – and that sometimes when dealing with bad clients it means having difficult conversations and indeed in some instances recognising a bad match and indeed having to end a relationship with them. Today, we regard RHUL’s management of ASB as completely ineffective. RHUL should also be made aware that by not dealing with the minority of badly-behaved students effectively puts the reputation of the well-behaved students (which are the majority) at risk as the community simply associates ‘Holloway students’ with ASB. Resentment towards RHUL amongst the community is growing with all students now being tarred with the same brush.
Can you also please communicate that we feel that the onus of managing RHUL students lies squarely on the shoulders of RHUL. RHUL somehow (and we imagine to their relief) feels that the management lies with also the Police and the RBC – and that it expects the residents to report any complaint to these authorities too. Having 3 organisations managing one noise complaint is massively wasteful and inefficient. RHUL should be the centre point for managing student ASB. Should they need to call in these taxpayer financed resources they can do so as a last resort.
Could you also please put forward the idea that RHUL sets about providing a 24 Hour Student ASB Hotline. We understand that this idea has been mooted before: the broad brush strokes of the idea is that residents could phone a hotline to report a live student ASB problem and in turn RHUL would dispatch its security team to investigate. The security team attending could then offer advice to the students causing the ASB and collect evidence for the Community Team that in turn can then enforce the university’s conduct policy if appropriate. An extension of this idea, which was presented at the surgery, was that RHUL could provide night-time patrols. This idea we also think is a pragmatic one and would be welcomed.
There are other aspects that I have not mentioned here that should also be raised with RHUL at some point but the above are the pertinent ones.
Overarching these points though, a big concern of ours is that RHUL’s attitude to student ASB is a dismissive one. This impression has been gained through reading RHUL’s literature around students in the community, reading Sarah Ixer-Pitfield’s, Head of PR & Media newsletter and our engagement with the Community Team. (I can add my personal experience meeting with Helen Groenendaal, Head of Wellbeing, who took the same tone in an online meeting last year.) Until RHUL change their approach and philosophy here, we are not sure they will embrace any ideas put forward and subsequently no meaningful change will occur. We would therefore like to meet with the new Principal, Julie Sanders at the earliest opportunity to see if she is prepared to tackle the issue in hand where her predecessor failed. We would also put to her the idea that RHUL should host regular public meetings where high level decision makers are present, where actions can be agreed and progress monitored.
One last thing: (apologies for the length of this email) parking. Parking is a growing problem in Englefield Green and it can be attributed primarily to RHUL’s growth and its lack of provision on site. They do need to address it and also make it affordable for its students/ employees so that it is used. Parking though is not an ASB issue unless the vehicle is parked inconsiderately or dangerously. We think you need to be mindful that the two issues are not clouded. On Saturday, the issue was clouded. The parking issue is divisive, student ASB is not. Please don’t let parking be a red herring when tackling student ASB.
We know you are busy and we appreciate what you do for the community but it would be good to hear from you individually as to whether or not you will present these views. For transparency, please note that I am a member of the group 100 Gnats and that I may share your responses with fellow gnats.
If you have the time, it would be great to meet you, individually or collectively to discuss this topic/ aspects of this topic.
Apologies again for the length of this email, I had to get these key points off as they were not touched upon in the surgery. I care greatly for Englefield Green and I am massively concerned for its future.
Best wishes,