Bulletin No. 2, July 2018

From Andrew Waller

Hi, this is going to the 36 people who've signed up to receive newsletters (thank you!) and a few others who've been in contact with me.

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I had not planned to write to you again until nearer the start of the new academic year, but the latest figures released by the University of Bristol for complaints against students can't be allowed to pass without comment.

If you thought the past academic year was one of the noisiest you've ever known, you were right. General noise complaints soared by 52% and the number of parties grew by 24% despite receiving special attention from the university. I suspect you'll agree that's pretty dismal news, and that we need to press the university for action aimed at steering these numbers in the right direction—down.

If you are a representative of a residents' group—and I know that quite a few subscribers are—then I suggest you and your members should consider making your views known to the community liaison officer, Joni Lloyd, as soon as possible.

I will be sending my views in, and I expect Chandos Neighbourhood Association (CNA) also to submit a response. If other groups do likewise, I'd be happy to receive a copy for my own information, but also to publish on thenoisepages.com (if you wish).

I published a report on the statistics presentation, highlighting the most important numbers, a few days ago. My opinions are contained  in a separate post "University needs a way to shut down parties", just published. This is what I will be submitting to the university.

I’m very happy to receive suggestions about what is or isn't on the website, directions to take, or simply articles for publication. Anyone who wants to help is welcome to get in touch with me at thenoisepages@gmail.com or 07804 102005

Other recent developments

I mentioned in the previous bulletin that Chandos Neighbourhood Association had invited the deputy registrar of the university, Lynn Robinson, to attend a meeting on July 3 to discuss the problems of very large student parties. The event, at Chum's on Chandos Road, produced a pretty lively discussion. The full minutes can be seen here.

Ms Robinson agreed to take away several ideas for discussion, including the possibility that the university's 24-hour mobile security team could have a role in collecting information about parties. No promises have been made, and similar suggestions have been rejected in the past. However, I decided that even if there's only the slimmest chance this might actually happen, the opportunity should not be missed. So a few days after the meeting, I published a post "Why UoB must tackle student parties—and how it can do so", containing proposals I had first voiced at an earlier CNA meeting in March. These call for university "staff", whether the security team or someone else, to go to the location of a party and speak to the students. I submitted these to Ms Robinson's office and received an acknowledgement in reply.

Since then we have had the complaints statistics, which surely call for a reappraisal of the university's strategy. However, that "call" has yet to be made, and will only be made if residents' groups send in their views. If the normal schedule is followed, the next community liaison meeting will not be held until December, which is a long way off.

My To Do List ...

• Revise the layout of the website to make more effective use of the home page,
• Promote the site more widely
• Pursue (still) discussions about police powers, the council’s approach to HMO legislation, and noise enforcement’s abatement notices. Getting officialdom to reply is a very frustrating process :-(
• Make preliminary contact with media outlets such as the Bristol Post so as to be ready to give greater publicity to future incidents or developments
• Contact residents groups. I've made some progress on that front: In the past week or so I had useful discussions with Clifton & Hotwells Improvement Society, Hampton Park & Cotham Hill Community Group and Redland & Cotham Amenities Society. (RCAS also kindly published a small article by me in their last magazine). I'm also in regular contact with the Chandos Neighbourhood Association. I hope to speak to more groups in the coming weeks. (Feel free to get in touch!)

That's it for now! Andrew  :-) 

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