Community advice

Refuse & Recycling

Many of you will be away from home for the first time, so it's down to you to do your bit to save the planet, keep your neighbours happy and help cut the amount of refuse that goes into landfill.

Runnymede Borough Council operate a comprehensive weekly kerbside recycling service. In addition to this wheelie bins containing non-recyclable materials (polystyrene, soft plastics e.g cling film, plastic bags) are collected fortnightly. Please remember to wash and squash all recylables! Food waste in the caddy should be put in biodegradable bags or wrapped in newspaper. Please do not use plastic bags as your waste will not be collected.

Your bin / containers are required to be put out at the boundary of your property by 6am on the day of your collection. Please ensure you do not leave your wheelie bin and boxes out on the street; once the refuse has been collected please return these to your storage place as soon as possible as they can become a hazard on the pavement and restrict access to people using the pavement.

For more information please contact Runnymede Borough Council on 0800 052 0067 (Recycling Hotline) or look at their website www.runnymede.gov.uk|

Recycling - Weekly collections

Food bin & caddy	All raw or cooked food waste
Blue recycling box	Cans, tins, glass bottles & jars, aerosols
Black recycling box	Cardboard, cartons, plastics, tetrapak, envelopes
Blue bag	Paper, magazines, newspapers, telephone directories
Black bag	Clothing, shoes (paired), curtains, sheets, blankets (all clean!)
Clear bag (not provided)	Batteries, spectacles, mobile phones

Car regulations for students

Students who live on the main campus are not allowed to bring cars to College. It came to our attention last year that a number of students tried to bring cars to College, contrary to these regulations, and left them parked in neighbouring streets, particularly round the back of Egham. Additionally students who do not have permits to park on the main campus, (e.g. those living at Kingswood and in the local area), must not to drive down to College and leave cars in adjoining streets. Because of the inconvenience being caused, Police take steps to identify owners of such cars when appropriate and to report them. College is also working to identify such student car owners.

College is also committed to identifying unauthorised cars if they are brought onto campus or into the locality. Compared to most universities, Royal Holloway provides a very large amount of student car-parking space, but this is only available to students who live off the main campus at Kingswood or in the NA30 complex or who commute from a distance greater than 1.5 miles. If you live on campus, it is a condition of our rules that you do not keep a car at College or in the locality at all; if you live locally it is a condition that you do not act in a way that inconveniences our neighbours.

If you are breaking our regulations on cars, we strongly advise you to take immediate steps to rectify the situation and to avoid becoming involved in difficulties with the Police or with the College, since otherwise you will probably be fined and may even be required to move off campus to our satellite Halls of Residence.

House parties

The most common general complaint from neighbours in the area surrounding the College is noise nuisance caused by student parties. Poor relations with your neighbours can cause unnecessary unpleasantness and general bad feeling towards the College. Additionally there are a range of legal powers open to neighbours and landlords to use and in some areas they have been quick to invoke these. In serious cases College will also take action against students to preserve good relationships locally. There are few things more miserable than seeing students in serious trouble over something that was originally meant to be fun, so do take precautions against complaints in advance.

There is not a fixed definition of when noise is or is not reasonable in the community in the same way as there is in Halls. However we would say there should be no excessive noise at any time, no noise at all after 11pm and that additional care must be taken on nights preceding work and school days.

Generally any noise that can be heard outside the premises can be defined as a nuisance. Therefore we suggest that if you are arranging a party you:

Involve your neighbours in advance. Agree a reasonable time to bring the party to an end. You may even consider inviting neighbours along to join you. Friday and Saturday nights are likely to be more acceptable nights, as the majority of people don't have to get up early for work or the school run.
When outside, be aware that sound carries much further out of doors. It is a good idea to keep windows and external doors closed as much as possible to keep the noise inside.
Encourage guests to arrive and leave quietly and if using cars to drive and park them responsibly.
Be careful how widely you circulate invitations and who you invite as you will be held responsible for the behaviour of gatecrashers and excluded guests who cause a disturbance in the street.
If things go seriously wrong, close the party down, if necessary involving the Police yourself. Unless you have particularly relaxed neighbours, don't expect to be able to hold repeated parties. Spread the load by getting friends to use their houses instead.

The College does its best to try and resolve any disputes by consensus. If neighbours are troubled, we ask them where possible to raise the issue with you first and to contact the College only if a resolution cannot be reached. The vast majority of cases that are referred to us are resolved without disciplinary sanctions, but if we receive formal substantiated complaints, especially when backed with evidence from the Police or Environmental Health Department, the College will look to impose a penalty on students and these penalties can be severe.

Anti-social behaviour

College occasionally receives reports of low-level anti-social behaviour. This includes general noise when leaving campus late at night; individuals trying to climb the fences on the College's Egham boundary after the back gate closes in the evening, with resultant noise and damage; and foolish antics such as upturning bins, interfering with car windscreen wipers and knocking at house doors. Such behaviour is fortunately isolated and completely out of character with the normal behaviour of our students locally. Poor relations with our neighbours obviously cause unnecessary unpleasantness and general bad feeling towards the College. Some of these actions are plainly illegal; all of them are inconsiderate. College works with the Police and the local authority and using CCTV to identify perpetrators. College will take firm action if any students are found to have been involved in such incidents.

Unauthorized Halls room swaps

Students may not privately exchange College rooms or let other people pay to take over their rooms (sub-letting is the technical term for doing this). Any room change that College does not know about creates significant safety problems and last year several examples came to light where students were attempting to let non-students take over College rooms. This is clearly potentially very dangerous.

Please do not become involved in this as penalties for those who are caught are high. College has a number of ways of tracking down illegitimate room changes which it is currently using. If you have made an exchange, we strongly suggest you change back immediately. If you wish to make a change, it must be arranged properly through the Student Housing Bureau.

Please also note that if you have signed a contract in the private sector you are not entitled to sign a contract for a Halls of Residence room.

Lighting

If you notice that a particular street light is not working you can report faults using Surrey County Council's online form|. To report an electrical hazard or emergency please telephone 0300 200 1003 as soon as you possibly can after noticing the problem.

Please have the following details to hand when reporting a fault:

The identity number of the streetlight - found on the lamp post approximately 2 metres from the ground
The road name
The number or name of the building closest to the light if there are any
Please leave your name and telephone number so the Council can contact you if further information is required

Shopping trolleys

Shopping trolleys being taken away from the store they belong to is a source of great tension within community relations. Please remember that trolleys are there to be used within the store only and should not be removed from that area, nor should they be used to take your shopping back to your home or halls address.

A message from Tesco plc Re: Customer Shopping Trolleys (March 2011)

We need your help with the persistent problem of people taking shopping trolleys from our superstore in Egham High Street and abandoning in the vicinity of the campus and beyond in the local community. This has a number of consequences for Accommodation Services at Royal Holloway University, the environment, The Tesco business and it's customers:

We provide our customers with shopping trolleys for the exclusive use in our store and need trolleys returned to the storage area immediately outside our store so that they are available for customers choosing to shop with us.
When trolleys are taken away from our property, this seriously compromises the availability to customers.
Stray abandoned trolleys are an eyesore for the residents of Egham and they present a safety hazard.
Trolleys which end up in water courses will obstruct the flow of water and wildlife can get trapped and killed.
Trolley collection presents our business with an avoidable cost if all customers just returned trolleys and retrieve the £1 coin.
Trolleys can get damaged when taken away from our store from negotiating rough terrain, cobbles, stones etc and replacement is not good for the environment.
Our customer trolleys are a Tesco owned asset and taking trolleys away from our store is criminal offence.
We appeal for your cooperation in refraining from taking trolleys away from our store and help us clean up the environment, preserve wildlife and exercise consideration for the residents of Egham.
Thank You.