The Student Section: Adverse weather & the local council: neglected populations?

A students' perspective

Great news! Guildford won’t grind to a halt this winter at the slightest touch of snow. Surrey County Council is currently considering plans to introduce advanced technology to distribute salt and grit on a risk assessed basis. Suggestions presented at a recent cabinet meeting included adopting thermal maps to detect roads at higher risk of ice and GPS for gritters to monitor progress.

But wait - only the roads are spoken of in these plans. It’s simple fact of life that ice makes no distinctions between road and path. Has nobody thought about pedestrians, which includes the entire student population who live off-campus? When thick sheets of ice pave the popular walking routes to campus e.g. Southway and to Tesco’s/Manor Park, the stream of students slows to a wobbling trickle. It might be funny to see but it isn’t fun, and from personal experience it can be safer to walk on the roads.

The expense involved in the clearance of ice and snow is justified by keeping the local and wider economy rolling by allowing workforces to reach their destinations and shoppers to reach their retail havens. However this should not mean that the rest of the population should go uncared for. The local council should take more responsibility for the safety of students, who the university website numbers at nearly 15,755 students living on and around campus, not to mention nearly 2,500 staff employed as lecturers, technicians, researchers and many more roles that keep the university running smoothly. Its’ hard to imagine that many people at once!

Some Guildford residents bemoan the fact that the town is filled with students, if their experience of us has been as noisy nuisances rather than bright minds of the future. However it would be a classic reasoning error to think that because the majority of students are young people and the University of Surrey is in Guildford, all young people in Guildford are students of the university. The rabble found in and outside of Flares, Bar Med and other nightlife hotspots is a surprisingly varied mix of the wider area’s population.

Although students don't pay council tax and still get the benefits e.g. our refuse and recycling being collected, we do contribute to Guildford's economy in other ways. This town isn’t cheap to live in and many landlords are making easy livings from student rent payments. An average student house holding 4 people will pay an annual total far beyond what average tenants could be expected to pay. Take for example two adults with children - it would be impossible for them to match the (roughly) £17.5k that myself and my three housemates fork out.

Bone-chilling, shivering winter will be hot (or cold) on autumn’s heels and while the council can take credit for their forward planning against seasonal issues, I’d like to see more done for the wellbeing of all Guildford’s residents, whether they are seen to contribute a lot or a little to the wider community.

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