The safety of language school students in Cambridge is at risk from irate residents Cambridge’s Community Safety partnership was told on the 10th of February 2015.
The meeting heard that some language school students were “going absolutely crazy” and the problems were exacerbated by them living in the new high density accommodation near the station where there are people living lots of different lifestyles in close proximity.
One of the Cambridge City Council officers who plays at policing, Lynda Kilkelly, told the meeting:
Something new that we’re experiencing in Cambridge City and that’s where we have higher density housing up around Hills Road, up around the station where we have a relatively new situation for Cambridge city mixed cross tenure accommodation lots of different life-styles, people maybe they’re not working, students, all living together. A little bit of tension cropping up between those groups because of the different lifestyles. So we really need a lot more with those small hotspot areas.
Some of the language schools have big groups of people coming in, staying for maybe six weeks going absolutely crazy, while they’re there having a really good time which is fine for them but really disturbing neighbours who have a working life so we’ve got to do some work around that.
Cllr Ann Sinnott said:
I’m the councillor for Petersfield ward and the issue of students is huge there. So what can be done about language schools? When they have short term courses as you say six week courses.
…
In the past we used to do a lot of work around the safety of language students who came and went I think we will be looking at that kind of experience and doing something similar.
Cllr Sinnott asked:
In terms of safety do you mean irate residents reacting to the noise?
Her officer told her:
Yes.
My thoughts and views
- Surely noise complaints are something the council’s environmental health team can rapidly and routinely deal with
- There is a lot of hate directed towards students of all types in Cambridge by some other residents. Often it’s ill-informed with young professionals doing critical jobs in the city being mistaken for students, and sometimes its rooted in some residents feeling they have a greater entitlement to things like space to park on the road, or even a greater right to live in certain types of properties, than others, when there’s no reasonable basis for that.
- I wonder if the new built flats are not sufficiently sound insulated, or if they are built in such a way that people don’t meet and get to know people who’re living on the other side of a wall/floor/ceiling?
- Significant numbers of the city’s language students are under 18; I don’t think it’s desirable to have groups of under-18s living un-supervised in houses or flats. I don’t know if that is happening either at all, or in the cases causing the problems being reported.
- People from very different backgrounds, living different lifestyles, living in close proximity is one of the characteristics of Cambridge. It’s generally, and potentially, quite a positive thing.
5 responses to “Cambridge Language Students at Risk From Irate Residents”
If you catch a bus from outside the station in the evening, there always seems to be a large party going on in one of the CB1 flats. I’m not sure about internal insulation, but the windows tend to be open so there’s certainly a degree of external noise pollution.
Yes, there are enforcement actions that can be taken, but if you read the link you gave, it’s clear that at the earliest timetable, resolving the problems is going to take a couple of weeks and it’s easy to imagine why it could take longer. When you’re dealing with new tenants every six weeks, you’re going to be filing the same reports again and again, but getting less than a month’s respite before the problems re-emerge. So this may not be a situation that existing enforcement mechanisms are designed for.
The council does have powers to take immediate action.
There does appear to be problems with Cambridge City Council’s response to calls about noise problems. The Cambridge News is reporting today an investigation into the council’s response to noise complaints about a rave is underway. Hopefully the findings of that investigation and the council’s actions following any recommendations will improve the way the council respond to all sorts of similar issues.
“There is a lot of hate directed towards students of all types in Cambridge by some other residents. Often it’s ill-informed with young professionals doing critical jobs in the city being mistaken for students, and sometimes its rooted in some residents feeling they have a greater entitlement to things like space to park on the road, or even a greater right to live in certain types of properties, than others, when there’s no reasonable basis for that.”
Absolutely. This is all too frequent, and reflects a very easy target, as young people are so rarely present at public meetings. It came up in a complaint about planning policy at North Area Committee yesterday, and we don’t even have a significant number of students in the area! I think you are correct that there is a tendency to assume any housing shared by young people is student housing.
“People from very different backgrounds, living different lifestyles, living in close proximity is one of the characteristics of Cambridge. It’s generally, and potentially, quite a positive thing.”
No-one would think anything of a shift-worker living next to someone with a newborn, next to a home-worker, next to someone having home construction done, next to a retiree, next to a family during holidays. It’s a very narrow view of ‘lifestyle’.
The British Transport Police based at the station have tweeted
and earlier tonight:
I visited the area at just after midnight and there at least three parties which could be clearly heard from the streets; which would clearly be quite annoying for those living in the same building, or adjacent buildings. The area is very densely populated and the sound bounces around between the buildings. As well as the noise there is a significant smell of cannabis around the blocks where the parties are.
My video was taken around two hours after the police had asked the council to take action; clearly the council are failing. Councillors should review what actions their officers took this evening and why they failed to address the problem. We’re paying council officers to be on call and to act, councillors should be ensuring we get a good service.