Leam locals outraged at loud students

Leamington residents have hit out at students by complaining to Warwick District Council about their noise levels during the first weeks of term.

The Council forwarded the complaints to the Students’ Union so that they were aware of the problems residents were reporting. Welfare Officer Leo Bøe, being new to the role, could not comment on whether complaints had increased in comparison with previous years. However, in his blog on the SU website he has provided advice to Warwick students on how to live amicably with other residents.

Bøe talks about the need to make connections with neighbours and commented, “We want to try to steer away from what people might see as typical student behaviour”. Yet, Bøe felt students were often unfairly blamed for all noise pollution. He said ‘residents, especially in student populated areas hear noise on the street and they’ll immediately assume that it’s students.’

Some students told the Boar they felt that locals were too quick to blame them for disturbances. One said ‘we get accused of a lot of things. Some students may be bad but some locals are worse. We had to put up with rowdiness and noises late at night from them during our exam time and we didn’t complain.”

In response, Bøe plans to introduce leaflets containing advice for students on how to be considerate neighbours and which also informs residents that they should not fear the students living around them.

Environmental services at the Council said that there are approximately 2,000 complaints made against noise pollution per year in the Warwick district. They said that the number of complaints made against students peaks at the start and end of university terms but considering the size of the student population living in Leamington, the number of complaints made against them is relatively low. However, it is impossible to know the exact figures of the reports on student noise as this is not recorded by the council.

The steps taken following a complaint begin with a formal notification letter and an unannounced visit by Environmental Health Police Officials to assess the noise levels. Consequences if the problem persists are for sound equipment to be removed; a fine issued and finally for court action to be taken.

Bøe said on his blog “by all means, be a student!” but reminds those reading “you are now students and local residents.”