Over the weekend, a petition to install a swipe-card system on the back gate at the base of campus, began to appear on Facebook profiles across Royal Holloway. Co-President, Welfare and Diversity, Jack Kilker explains more in this blog.
Over the weekend, a petition to install a swipe-card system on the back gate at the base of campus, began to appear on Facebook profiles across Royal Holloway. I’m incredibly grateful to the student who started this position, and brought the issue of the current back gate system to the forefront of the student consciousness.
The system that we have at the moment is by no means perfect: from shortly after 23:15 until approximately 07:00, the gate is closed. For students working at the library, employed on campus until midnight or later, or frequenting one of our on-campus bars, this creates a problem.
These students have, historically, either walked via the side gate and Malt Hill to access much of Egham, used the Sshh bus on the nights that the service is available, or have climbed over (or through) the back gate. These are not solutions, and are not really sustainable.
The Sshh bus is a service facilitated by paid student staff, and one which does not have the resource to run every single evening. Many students, faced with a wait for the next bus to arrive, will also often decide to walk home rather than wait in the cold, rendering the service useless for these individuals. It’s also clearly not acceptable for students to be putting themselves at risk of injury by climbing over or through a metal gate.
Community Relationships
Much of the need for the gate has come from the relationship with the local community, and a history of students making excessive noise as they enter or leave the campus through the residential estate which leads up to the gate, throughout the early hours of the morning.
Having the gate has meant that this situation has not been alleviated, but simply moved to Malt Hill, where the same noise and disruption now take place, possibly exacerbated by the extended journey these students are making.
Swipe-card access would be an answer to these problems. It would allow our students to come and go as they please, in a safe and convenient manner, but would also carry the weight of the College being able to determine who has opened the gate and at what time.
This would allow noise complaints to be tracked and linked to whoever has been using the gate at the time of the complaint, giving a greater assurance to the local community that we can, and will, take noise complaints and instances of anti-social behaviour seriously.
This discussion has now been raised with senior members of College management, and the Students’ Union will be keenly following developments and discussions around this and updating the student body accordingly.
If you have opinions on how better to shape our work around this, then please feel able to engage with our democratic processes, and input policy to our General Meeting on 8 December – come into the Students’ Union to see me and find out how to do this or drop me any email with any questions you have.
Jack Kilker
Co-President, Welfare and Diversity