Bulletin No. 10, August 2020 From Andrew Waller Hello, all—including recent joiners who’ve taken this list past 320. What happened to the quiet summer we were looking forward to? July has been a shock to the senses …! (If this is hard to read, use the View in Browser option) In this issue: - Noise statistics
- UoB's unconvincing response
- Coronavirus concerns
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Off the Scale We expect students to leave at the end of June and not return until late September. The summer break is a necessary salve for the disruption we experience when the university is in session. No such luck this year. Within days of HMOs falling vacant, they began filling up again with students aiming to spend all or part of the summer in Bristol to catch up on partying they missed during lockdown. No one begrudges young people a social life, but it is never quiet and apparently must take place when the rest of us are trying to sleep. The outcome is that July has seen an explosion of noise. Many of you have written to me saying you’ve been kept awake on multiple consecutive nights. It will be no consolation to know that this appears also to be happening in other university cities around the country. |
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Shhh! The University of Bristol has put up a series of coloured posters in Chandos Road and adjoining streets. The catchline is Shhh!, aimed at reminding students to keep the noise down as they walk through the area. It's part of a pilot project that was originally previewed by UoB some months ago but was delayed by lockdown. Several designs are being trialled, with human faces, as here, or images such as an owl or fox—tagline, 'Night creature? People are trying to sleep'. |
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Noise Statistics The noise onslaught began just as I wrapped up my statistics for academic 2019-20, ending 30 June. That seems a long time ago now. Suffice to say, 2019-20 was not much different from the year before. The impact of the two-month lockdown lull disappeared as students returned in May and June (particularly noisy). Chandos, a core area, started the year quieter but got hit harder towards the end. Cue July’s unexpected influx ... Some of this summer crowd may be May-June returnees who stayed on, just in a different HMO. A larger number appear to be former first-years, who’d been locked out of halls since March. Once allowed back to collect belongings, they went directly to the HMOs they’d signed up for but would not normally occupy until September. Some may intend to stay only for a few weeks, others for the summer. Either way, their partying has been prolific: - I’ve posted 59 complaints for July 1st-31st, with a dozen more awaiting attention. That’s as many as I received in almost six months (Sept. to Feb.) in 2019-20!
- More than half came from the Chandos area and Hampton Road.
- Many complaints mention more than one incident, so the scale of noise is even worse than the raw numbers suggest.
- The total number of unique addresses complained about (out of the 59 currently posted) is 34. Of these, 12 have already notched a second complaint and 7 have three or more complaints against them. One property has 5 (and was also a top offender in June, but with different tenants—which begs some questions about landlord responsibility).
- Not everyone copies complaints to me. The university’s tally is higher but also takes in a wider area (see below).
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UoB — An Unconvincing Response The university was taken by surprise by July's events just like everyone else. The community liaison officer was on holiday for the first part of the month. In his absence, the police officer attached to UoB, PC Sian Harris, visited 43 addresses, sometimes with local beat officers, and gave out “words of advice”. (These were not universally heeded; some of the repeat offenders are among this group.)
The CLO, Gordon Scofield, told a Chandos association Zoom meeting on Monday (27 July) that UoB had received 108 complaints for the month. He had visited 63 addresses, but found someone in at only 31. The alternative, to email, is not currently possible because students don’t usually register their house address until September, so names cannot be matched to complaints. Registration will now be requested from this week.
He also said the university is rewriting its disciplinary rules. One innovation may be a behaviour contract that students will have to sign at the start of each year. Worryingly, though, he confirmed that no complaints will go to a disciplinary hearing until the university resumes in October. So no penalties will be forthcoming in the next couple of months to deter anyone from holding parties—nor for obvious breaches of Covid-19 regulations. UoB has issued two public warnings to students to follow social-distancing guidelines, but it seems both have been spectacularly ignored if we use parties as an index of behaviour. Bottom line: The university's response doesn't match the scale or urgency of the current epidemic of noise. By relying on one person to tramp the streets, it is failing to stamp its authority on events. That could yet have implications for its hopes of reopening the campus in October. (See article links below.) |
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Coronavirus Concerns I've posted two articles in the last couple of days on the concerns raised by parties not just in relation to noise but as regards compliance with social-distancing: |
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Tackling Landlords I’ve long thought more attention should be directed at landlord and property agents. Under the HMO legislation that applies to most student houses, landlords (the HMO licence holders) are required to "take reasonable steps to minimise any nuisance, alarm, harassment or distress that may be caused to neighbours by the way the property is used." (If you live next to an HMO, the licence holder is also obliged to provide you with contact details, and should already have done so.) It's easy to send complaints to UoB, so many residents do only that. I’d like to see a systematic effort to ensure complaints are routinely copied to landlords or agents, and I’m glad to hear that various people in Roslyn Road, Lansdown Road and Clifton are thinking along these lines. Landlord details can also be obtained from the council. See the HMO section of my Resources page. The Eviction Timetable Eviction is rarely a credible threat in “normal” times. Students are in residence for only about eight months of the year. Landlords often operate a three-strikes policy: email response to first complaint, letter to guarantors (parents) on the second, eviction threat (if at all) only on the third—except that, by this stage, the year is half-gone and an eviction would probably not complete before the lease expired. But this year is different. Students have arrived in the first of their 12 months and in some cases have already racked up multiple complaints. If landlords were to stick to their procedures, some students might have difficulty holding on to their tenancies. Seems like another reason to ensure all these complaints are routed to landlords and agents as well as the university. Council Enforcement Likewise, residents may be in a stronger position than normal to seek council intervention. Bristol City Council refuses to deal with noise complaints unless there's a pattern of repeated disturbance from an address, hence its requirement for a 14-day noise diary. This restrictive policy ensures that not many complaints reach the enforcement team. But given the number of repeat incidents I mentioned earlier, there is a greater prospect that more complaints will meet the threshold. Check out the council complaint page here. Operation Beech There is still no word as to whether Beech will be reinstated. UoB has apparently made an offer to the police and the matter is in negotiation. This is good news to the extent that I’d expected a flat refusal from the university to find the money. But I sense the police are lukewarm, so this is not done yet. If you wish to impress on UoB how vital it is that we have night-time intervention (and soon!), lobby the Vice-Chancellor, Hugh Brady, at
vc-epa@bristol.ac.uk. |
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Thanks for reading and stay safe. 'Bye for now, Andrew |
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