Hate to post it it but noisey students Moonraker Point

Another year and another load of bellowing students trotting back to their halls of residence at all hours of the night.

I'm not sure why the need to shout so loudly as they walk past the various residential buildings but it really is starting to get on my wick, as it were..

Is anyone else affected by the noise they create and complained about it, did you communicate with unite or the college that the students belong too?

Is there any other people that I can contact to raise awareness of this nightly problem..

I should be asleep by now but I'm now wide awake due to some kind souls braying at each other. Btw, I live on the same street and can categorically say it is the students rather than some random passerbyers(not sure if that word actually exists)

Which halls?

hi,

the halls in question are called moonraker point, hence the name of this thread.

hear is the website for them

http://www.unite-students.com/london/moonraker-point

apologies, should have made that clearer in my first post..

September is when Uni/College starts: for many of the freshers it is the first time away from home without parental supervision.

Add some alcohol, the general excitement and a few spliffs, mix them in with some attractive members of the opposite sex and your recipe for noise is complete.

However it isn't going to last once the academic year gets underway: your student neighbours who are now a noisy nuisance will soon become a bunch of quiet swatting grade-grabbers...

Jules62 wrote:

your student neighbours who are now a noisy nuisance will soon become a bunch of quiet swatting grade-grabbers...

...not if the recent stories about how circa 1/3 of students at e.g. LSBU don't complete their degrees is true.

I'm on Pocock Street and suffering too. It's waking me up all through the night, and there's also been a massive rise in the amount of litter I see along the street, with loads of fast food packages left on windowsills and the ground.

I'd also love to know whether to complain to the building manager (is there a contact number?) or to one of the Unis. Or both!

And from experience I can say the students do not just settle down and become swots - Freshers' week is particularly bad but the noise persists all through each term time. I understand a bit of noise as the result of living in central London, but this really is antisocial behaviour and they need to be told to knock it off.

Unite is a private operator. Most of its students are KCL, with some LSBU and others.

I'd call the operator on 0800 121 7387 and ask to make a complaint. If they don't take it seriously then let them know you'll involve Southwark Council.

They terms of occupation make plenty of reference to noise, so they should take a complaint seriously.

I agree with lexy, this is the third year that the building has been operating and the antisocial behavior continues well beyond fresher's week and the noise can go on at all times of the night.

The litter is also a problem too, I've grown tired of dodging round the melons,eggs and various other fruit, takeaway cartons etc, that have been dumped from on high, heaven help anyone who walks underneath that place and gets hit..

Thankyou for the suggestions truth monkeys home, will follow them up and see where I get, hopefully the message will get through about respecting your neighbours..

I have a lot of sympathy - this is something we've had to spend a lot of time dealing with in Henshaw St (just off New Kent Road). Although we don't have halls about half the houses in the street are let as HMOs, many to students. Part of the problem is - although individuals and even individual households might not make that much noise themselves, put together it can cause a massive regular disturbance - and my experience is that (as above) although it calms down a bit after Sep / Oct it does not go away.

Good luck if you get anyway with the Unis - I tried contacting the major ones (Kings / UCL / LSE / South Bank) about 5 years ago when this first became apparent as a problem - and they made sympathetic noises but essentially washed there hands. To them students are adults who are responsible for themselves - and frankly even if they wanted to they don't have the admin ability to deal with it.

So what can be done? It's a good idea to get the Council involved but which team? You might think you could call the noise team from Environmental Services but I strongly suspect you'll find they don't consider this a statutory disturbance - that usually only relates to continuous noise above a certain decibel level - eg a sound system in the street. My advice would be to report problems to the Anti Social Behaviour Unit (http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/98/antisocial_behaviour) - this will get you help eventually but you will need to report and get your neighbours to report regularly.

In our street the situation has been enormously improved by a not for profit called the Southwark Mediation Centre (http://lambethandsouthwarkmind.org.uk/directory/southwark-mediation-centre-smc/). They were initially brought in by the Council, later various landlords were persuaded to pay them. They meet students and other people in HMOs BEFORE they move in (this is essential) - explain the local issues and get involved whenever there are problems. I suspect the landlords of the various Halls would benefit from working with them.

Finally (and longterm) this should ultimately be a planning issue. We seem to have more and more student accommodation in the area and at some point it's reasonable to start objecting to any new developments (maybe we need to co-ordinate on this?) In our street we have managed to get the [email protected] to agree an Article 4 Direction (comes into force next month) which means we can't get any new HMOs at least. Maybe we need something similar to cover halls in the northern half of the borough?..

Take care and good luck

Thankyou sharing your experiences marcuslesser, it has given me some hope and a new way to tackle the situation. I will contact the mediation centre and see if they can help, as well as raise with unite and the council. If anyone wants to highlight any disruptive events, feel free to pm me and I can pass on your concerns too. I do agree that there should be greater control on the size and density of a student block and the impact of that population on the existing residents.