Post 28 – 13/05/23 – Lessons In History

For those of you that belong to the group, ‘Forum – We Need To Talk About Royal Holloway’, you may have already read Jon’s post from 24th April. It was his first hand account of living in Egham 17 years ago. Jon has kindly agreed to allow us to share it here.

“This was a campaign that was run by three of us on the Ripley Springs estate, concerning the three roads closest to the rear entrance of the college that suffered most from disruption; Lynwood Avenue, Spring Rise and Ripley Avenue. We battled from 2006 until 2008, attending meetings at the college that were attended by some very senior figures from the college itself, Surrey Police, Surrey County Council, Runnymede Borough Council, local councillors and others too whom I have forgotten as it was so long ago. We were aware that Helen Groenendaal (ex RHUL student) and Marisa Heath (ex RHUL student) were unlikely to support us with our complaints as so few locals actually wanted to do anything constructive, just preferring to complain over the breakfast table, garden fence or whilst out shopping to friends. We tried getting a petition up but few people got involved. We had the problem of phoning up the college to raise a complaint to be asked “How do you know that they are students?” followed by “You’re the only person who has complained!” One morning, just by chance, three of our neighbours were standing in the street discussing the nocturnal noise from a particularly bad night. All three had phoned the college, and all three were told that they were the only person to complain! Divide and conquer at its best. Consequently, fewer people bothered to complain as it was pointless. This was seized on, and the college proudly announced that the level of complaints had dropped dramatically within the last year! I even managed to get our local councillor (ex-RHUL lecturer) to come down to our estate to discuss issues including the dozens of stolen supermarket trollies, which were left in their grounds, being used by students in the late evening and through the night as people carriers, which often resulted in them colliding with the parked cars. The only blessing was that they weren’t permanent residents’ parked cars, they belonged to students who had taken all of the spaces. With this the councillor gave a broad smile and said that it reminded him of his Freshers’ Week! I told him that I was disappointed that he found this amusing, as I expected him to be concerned, angry and embarrassed. With that, the meeting ended. The nocturnal noise was always dreadful, just sometimes worse than others. The rear gates were supposed to be closed from 0045 hours until 0530 hours, but often the security guards didn’t bother to close them at all, and even if they did the students would noisily clamber over them. On one occasion I called the police when a drunken student decided to kick in several panels in the fencing, making one hell of a row. I had lived in the Egham area for 57 years at that time, 23 of those years living within 250 feet of the back gates. When I moved there, we had a proper community of families, and also a few student settlements too, human beings of all ages, living harmoniously. Gradually, it seemed that as soon as a house came up for sale it was bought, turned into an HMO and filled with students. The place was like a transit camp for teenagers and young twenties in further education, many of whom had absolutely no consideration for other people. A full night’s sleep was not possible, and many of us reached the end of our proverbial tethers. On one particular occasion four shouting students were not far from my front gate, stealing the road cones that a neighbour had put out to try to secure a parking space outside his home. I had had enough and went out to confront them. When I get angry I go green, split my shirt and roar! Three of the students did the sensible thing and ran for it, but a fourth decided to argue the toss. I was in no mood to argue and punched his stupid head a couple of times, which seemed to get my message across. My wife was horrified, and decided there and then that we had to leave Egham at the first opportunity, which is what happened. I know that what I did was wrong, but I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown mainly due to lack of sleep, and so was driven out of my home town by the students of RHUL. No-one should have to put up with this sort of perpetual torture, and I have deep sympathies with those people who remain in Egham and have to live under such circumstances.”

Pretty powerful eh? But also pretty insightful. Some observations:

+ Helen Groenendaal still works for RHUL and it would appear dismisses residents’ complaints today with the same trident that she used 17 years ago: questioning whether the perpetrator of the ASB is actually a student, suggesting that the complainant is possibly being unreasonable as he is the only one making a complaint, presenting questionable evidence purporting that student ASB is not a significant problem. (Well this was my first hand experience and that of one of my immediate neighbours in 2022.)

+ A councillor that dismisses the problem.

+ Parking issues.

+ The HMO Flywheel.

+ A resident so frustrated that he takes matters into his own hands.

Has anything actually changed in the last 17 years? Do RHUL really care about local residents’ concerns? Do RHUL indeed care about the safety and well being of their own students?

I think I know the answers to these questions. How have RHUL been allowed to carry on behaving so irresponsibly?

Another lesson from history: Jon tried to get people together to take action but failed to gather support. Can we afford to do the same today? Can we continue to accept RHUL’s current approach to the community as it grows from 12,000 to 15,000 students in the next 7 years? I don’t think we can just talk about this, I think we need to take some action.

As we continue to wait for a reply to our letter dated 6th Feb 2023 from RHUL’s Principal, Julie Sanders, would you consider stepping forward to join a group of 23 others that are prepared to help deliver change? I’ve inserted a link to a form below where you can pledge to donate time. There are a wide variety of roles to consider including ones for those that are time poor.

Thank you for considering. Let’s try to improve our situation so that we too don’t end up being like Jon: having to leave the community that we fundamentally love.

Best wishes,

We Need To Talk About Royal Holloway

PS Next week we’ll update you to our progress in trying to meet with Julie Sanders.