Post 53 – 20/03/24 – In The Thick Of It (5 Minute Read)
One of the aims of our current campaign is to increase awareness of WNTT. Last week I shared Posts 50 & 51 in the Facebook groups Englefield Green Chat & Egham Official Residents. In the comments that followed a couple of things were reaffirmed to me….
First, when highlighting the issues caused by RHUL’s expansion some people quickly jump to the belief that WNTT is anti-student or anti-tertiary education. I can confirm here again that I am neither of these and nor are any of the core team. I would also like to think most of the people that follow this Newsfeed think the same too. If we were anti-anything, if that is such a thing, it would be us being anti-RHUL’s senior management team. We believe that they are behaving irresponsibly by following an unmanaged growth plan which does not consider or respect the needs of the community. Unfortunately, it would appear that some conflate the two aspects.
And this leads into the second observation: RHUL’s Soft Power. (This probably merits more than a paragraph and we should visit this again at some point.) RHUL’s marketing into the community is pretty good. For example, supporting the village fair, free music recitals, student volunteering etc. These in their own right are all good things for sure, you can’t argue against that. But at the same time these gestures benefit RHUL on another level – it makes it more difficult for people to push back against RHUL. We need to be aware that businesses (and we categorise RHUL as a business albeit an unusual looking one) don’t normally give things away for free.
The third thing I noticed was that a couple of people thought that belonging to this Newsfeed is probably a dry old affair – and I am sorry to say, they are probably right. The matter is serious for many and although I try to drop in a subtle gag now and again it is probably only me that raises a smile. If it was me wanting a lighter 5 minutes, I would probably look up some quotes from Blackadder or possibly The Thick Of It depending on my mood. For people that live near a problematic student HMO or are surrounded by student HMOs, they definitely don’t see the funny side. And the slow disintegration of the community caused by RHUL’s growth should be a concern for all. On this note, Cllr. Sian Williams, I noted your thumbs up to a comment in the Egham Official Residents group. Despite you being well briefed on the issue, I think this gesture demonstrates that you are probably completely out of touch with the RHUL problem. Could I ask you to go door knocking in the area that has been recently affected by the alleged student joyriders and explain to your residents there why you haven’t taken their repeated calls for action more seriously?
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To the people that have joined this group recently: local residents that are impacted by RHUL’s growth, curious residents that have an interest in their community and want to find out more and also RHUL students, welcome. WNTT is interested in finding long term solutions to the problems caused by RHUL’s expansion. It is also here to provide advice to local residents that are impacted by the RHUL problem. In a nutshell we believe we need a better RHUL, not a bigger RHUL. We are preparing a summary catch up page for the website – once it is ready we will share the link here. In the meantime, you may want to read some of the previous posts that start here. Oh, you might need a gin or two, the content is pretty dry. 😉
https://weneedtotalkaboutroyalholloway.com/whatsapp-forum-posts-2023
Best wishes,
We Need To Talk About Royal Holloway