Campaign to bridge the gap between Oxford residents and students (From The Oxford Times)

Campaign to bridge the gap between Oxford residents and students

5:49pm Sunday 11th October 2009 in News By Thom Airs

A CAMPAIGN to bridge the divide between students and Oxford’s permanent residents is making good progress, say the people behind it.

This week, representatives from Oxford City Council and Oxford Brookes University knocked on doors around the Gypsy Lane estate in Headington to talk to students about issues including recycling, litter, noise and bad landlords.

Mark Lygo, the Labour city councillor for Churchill, said: “What we’re trying to do is encourage all households about recycling and highlight the issue of refuse collection and other complaints.

“We told students what to put in their recycling boxes, what not to put in them and told them to contact the council if they didn’t have enough boxes.

“I’ve also heard of students who have moved into places where carpets hadn’t been cleaned and the gardens were overgrown.

“We tell them what environmental health can do and we also talk residents through the complaints procedure if there are noise problems.

“There are nearly 700 students on this estate and we all need to work together.”

Mr Lygo said the relationship between Brookes and those living near the university had improved in the past 18 months.

He said: “We are meeting this week to see how Brookes can really engage and not take their eye off the ball. And they are engaging more, they have realised they have to work with residents’ associations and listen on a regular basis, not just when a problem occurs.

“We’re stepping in the right direction and I certainly don’t want to point fingers at Brookes.

“We’ve been working on this for 18 months and it’s a big issue for us.

“Before that we were going round in circles as students would move out after eight months and new ones would come in.

“Now we’re trying to nip it in the bud. We did a walkabout with environmental health before the students moved in to assess the situation then, and we’ll do another walkabout at the end of November.”

Andrea Siret, of Brookes, said: “We’re working towards a common goal to make sure residents’ needs are met and educating the students and ensuring they get all the information they need.

“I deal with a complaints database which can single out hotspots and certain issues, and we are liaising with the city council and police.

“Building community relations has become a very important issue for Brookes.”