Bulletin No. 6, September 2019

From Andrew Waller

Hello—here we go again! Welcome to recent joiners—this list is now nearing 220.

(If this is hard to read, use the View in Browser option)

The main news in this edition:

• The Operation Beech police patrols resume this weekend
• I and other residents have been interviewed by BBC TV
• I've analysed the noise data you helped me log for 2018-19

Read on!

Operation Beech Resumes

Following the two-week trial run in June, Beech is coming back this weekend*, which marks the end of Freshers week and the start of term. (*Friday Sep 27.)

The patrols will operate on all Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in October, although officers can always be pulled away to deal with emergencies. Hallowe'en night on Oct 31, which is likely to be noisy (especially if it's also Brexit night) will not be covered—it's a Thursday, and anyway the police are typically too busy on Hallowe'en to cover it.

Coverage in future months will probably be more selective, and dates will be announced nearer the time. Check with the link above for any updates.

The following is my own advice (unofficial) for using Beech:

• Text, don't call. The officers will probably get lots of requests, and you may not get a direct response unless they need more information.
   
• I suggest you keep your text short and begin with the address—eg, “xx Chandos Rd: large house party, grateful if you can intervene, John”, or “Hampton Rd, near petrol station: large, noisy group gathered on street, please can you speak to them, Julia”. (Be polite; during the trial some people weren't.)
   
• I suspect the officers will be quite busy and may have to prioritise certain incidents, so you may have to be patient.
   
• With that in mind, I suggest you don't contact Beech unless you need to: Some things can be better dealt with by an email to the university in the morning. At the other end of the scale, if your student neighbours start playing noisy sound equipment at 10pm, and there are clear signs of major disruption to come, then don't hesitate. In other words, let's not paralyse the system with trivial stuff, but also let's not wait too long to notify something that genuinely warrants intervention. I don't think you need wait until UoB's 10pm (midweek) or midnight (weekend) guideline has been breached. The officers are on duty only until 2am, so there will be a problem if requests bunch up after midnight.
   
• Whether or not you contact Beech, I advise that you file a complaint email to the university in the normal manner. If you want to add feedback about the Beech experience, that might be helpful to UoB, the police, and me (please copy me in).
   
• Indeed, I am interested in any feedback, because I don't know whether we (residents) are going to get any from the police or university. Discussion on Beech at the university's liaison meeting in July was not encouraged, and no one has thought to consult the community on how Beech is going to work. It has been a struggle this week just to get the basic details confirmed.

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

BBC 1, Inside Out West, Oct 7, 7-30pm

Bookmark that date! Along with Diana Swain (Chandos chair) and others, I have given an interview about the student-noise problem for this programme. No idea how it's going to turn out. Hope it does some good. When I was a local-newspaper reporter I used to cheerfully tell my victims subjects that any publicity was good publicity. Now that seems less certain .... :-)

News updates

I've recently posted several news items to the website. Here's a roundup:

• Complaints to the University of Bristol about student parties fell in academic 2018-19. However, “general noise” complaints went up. More ...
• The Noise Pages documented 95 incidents over the year, helped by 179 emails from residents. More ...
• Both universities have seen staff changes. Joni Lloyd has stepped down as community liaison manager at UoB. Gordon Scofield, her predecessor, has returned to the role.  More …
• UoB's information campaigns to prepare first-years for “living out” in the community reach only half of their target audience.  More …

I have also refurbished parts of the website. The panel of buttons linking to pages about "How to respond to noise" has been replaced by a single button at the top of the home page. I've revised the text on the response pages in light of experience, and to account for things like Operation Beech. Under the page about dealing with Frequent Disturbance from a neighbouring property, I've added a reference to the following piece of legislation, about which I hope to write more in due course: 

There is a little-known option under  ​Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 whereby residents can take a complaint of statutory noise nuisance directly to a magistrates’ court, without involving the council.

I am also starting to receive incident reports, as you will see on the home page.

Several other things are bubbling, so keep an eye on the site. If there's something major, I will of course put out a bulletin. 

What Can You Do?

• Complain! I know we don't like to think of ourselves as complainers, but bureaucratic organisations such as the universities tend to do decision-making by the numbers. If they're going in the wrong direction, they respond. So don't hold back if you're being affected by noise disturbance.

• Let me know which street you live in (house number not necessary), so I have a network I can tap by email if I seek information about a noise event. (I've rejigged my sign-up form to include an optional question about location, and the 10 or so recent joiners have all filled it in.)
   
• Encourage friends or neighbours to sign up to this newsletter!

Finally

If you haven't already done so, it's a good idea to try to make contact with your new student neighbours. A friendly chat now could pay dividends over the course of the year. Also, we have to remember that the new tenants should not be blamed for the sins of their predecessors; we have to give them a chance.

Thanks for reading. ‘Bye for now, Andrew

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