Dealing with Neighbourhood Difficulties
Introduction
Royal Holloway has been a significant presence in the Egham and Englefield Green communities for well over 100 years now. The College takes its relationship with the local community extremely seriously. We contribute to the local economy and community in a variety of positive ways.
- Financial input - more than £10 million injected into the
local economy by student spending alone
- Economic input - many jobs for local people in the College and support
for increased local infrastructure
- Voluntary work - a large programme of student voluntary work in local schools, and the community
However, we are aware that there can also be occasional disputes between our students and local residents. The College is committed to doing everything within its power to resolve these. This page explains what steps can be taken if you are having difficulties.
Royal Holloway has one of the highest proportion of students in residence of all British universities. Additionally, we are confident that the vast majority of our non-resident students - and there are approximately 1500 of them living in the local community - behave impeccably. The local Police and Environmental Health Department report that our students cause far fewer complaints than tenants in other parts of the borough and are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators.
Nevertheless, there will undoubtedly always be some students who act thoughtlessly, and the College is keen to help ensure that these problems are minimised. Our students are adults, paying under a voluntary contract for their education with us. The College's legal right to control their behaviour off-campus is limited. We therefore try to proceed in the first instance by encouraging acceptable behaviour. If encouragement fails, we seek to work in partnership with the Police and Local Authority in taking further steps as this maximises our legal authority.
Noise Problems
The College explains to students that when living in a mixed community, there is a general expectation that there will not normally be excessive noise at any time, and particularly not at night time before a working day. Some neighbourhoods are more tolerant of noise than others. If you are troubled by repeated excessive noise from a household you believe to be occupied by our students, we would ask you first to raise the issue with them. Hopefully this will resolve matters.
If it does not, you may contact the College. We will seek to confirm that those causing annoyance are our students and will meet with them to discuss the problem. We have found if a conciliatory approach is taken early on, many problems are resolved.
If the students then persist in the behaviour and we are contacted again, we will look to see if we have enough evidence to impose a sanction. We cannot take such action without objective judgement about the degree of nuisance by an agency such as the Police or another outside body such as the local council, so we would ask residents to involve such agencies whenever possible. They are experienced in these areas and can help us see exactly where the problem lies.
If anti-social behaviour continues, the College will seek to escalate the sanctions on the student. However such action needs to be backed by irrefutable objective evidence of significant anti-social behaviour. The College works in close co-ordination with the Police and the Local Authority to ensure that, where clear evidence of anti-social behaviour exists, they file a report on the behaviour of the students involved.
We do ask neighbours to be tolerant of the fact that students are entitled to pursue their own lifestyles and make full use of their properties as long as their behaviour is reasonable. Occasionally we receive complaints about behaviour that may be unusual for a neighbourhood but which is a perfectly acceptable part of modern life. Playing music at reasonable volume in the daytime; using the garden for barbeques at reasonable hours; talking at normal volume indoors at night; arriving home late but quietly; holding an occasional well-managed party are not unreasonable behaviours and the College cannot involve itself in investigating such matters.
When noise complaints are from students about non-student neighbours, we advise students how to approach neighbours informally to discuss the issue and where possible to fit their study patterns around the prevailing family life patterns in the area.
Car Problems
We are aware that car-parking is a problem in some areas, especially in Egham. Unfortunately this is true of many areas in the South East, whether they have a student population or not and is a difficulty of our time. The College is keen to ensure that we do not contribute to the worsening of this problem. Students living on our main campus are discouraged from bringing cars to College. Although Royal Holloway provides a high number of parking spaces for students compared to other universities, it is unable to provide car parking for resident students on the main campus. This is determined by our Traffic Plan, agreed with Local Government, as well as other constraints. We decidedly do not want these students to bring cars and leave them in residential streets, so this is forbidden by College rules ands students are strongly urged not to do this. Resident students who are keen to bring cars to College can take rooms at our Kingswood Hall in Englefield Green where parking and transport to the main campus is available. These rules are prominently displayed and we believe the vast majority of students (and students' parents, who are frequently the purchasers of vehicles) take them seriously.
The College does urge students living in the local community to be responsible car users and advises them on appropriate car use and seeks to encourage compliance. We leaflet cars parked inconsiderately where these may belong to students, and liaise closely with the local police and residents' groups where cars are causing an obstruction. Students who disobey the College rules about bringing a car to College when they have no agreed parking on campus are disciplined; this can, in extreme cases, result in them being required to vacate their room in Halls. Non-resident student tenants often have rules stipulated in their tenancy agreements about how many cars may be kept at an address and where they should be parked. Breaches of these rules should be reported to the owners or managers of the rented properties as well as College. Dangerous driving and other road traffic offences are initially a matter for local Police; College will consider taking action against students guilty of a breach of the law.
Untidy Premises
Friction is sometimes caused because student-rented properties are allowed to become more dilapidated than other houses in the street, or refuse is allowed to accumulate. The College currently advises students concerning refuse collection and their responsibility for general upkeep of their rented property.
The fault may be the landlord's or the agent's if they are not providing enough bins and equipment for maintenance or are not carrying out maintenance tasks that are their own responsibility. Alternatively the fault may be the tenants' if their contract stipulates that they are responsible for maintenance, or if they are missing refuse collections or expecting extra piled rubbish to be collected as a matter of course. Such issues can normally be resolved by discussion with the students or contact with the landlords or agents and College is happy to involves itself in helping with this. If problems prove intractable, the local Environmental Health Department will advise in this area.
Other Anti-social Behaviour
The College takes any occurrence of violent or abusive behaviour by any of our students exceptionally seriously, whoever the victim. This is exceptionally rare - our students are generally very law-abiding. The College is not legally able to investigate serious crimes and must wait until guilt has been established by legal proceedings. Where guilt of a serious crime has been established, a student's registration at the College is reviewed.
Contacts
If you want further advice, please contact us on community@rhul.ac.uk or by phoning 01784 443394. Runnymede Environmental Protection department
can be contacted on 01932 838383 or by emailing technical@runnymede.gov.uk