With the start of the new University academic year rapidly approaching the University and its partners are finalising plans to welcome new and returning students to Loughborough to ensure they quickly settle into life both on campus and in the community. 

All students will be back in Loughborough for the start of term on 29 September, with new first year students or ‘freshers’ arriving from Tuesday 23 September. 

The University, Students’ Union, Police and Charnwood Borough Council have worked in partnership to bring together a comprehensive set of initiatives designed to ensure students are safe and secure and have all the information they need about living and studying in Loughborough.  The programme of initiatives includes a variety of briefings, events, printed material and even free gifts aimed at students living both on and off campus.

Whilst the vast majority of students respect the community that is their new home, local residents are reminded that the partner agencies will again have systems in place to deal with any issues that might arise.  Over the summer the partners have been working on simplified arrangements for residents who wish to report concerns about student behaviour.   Residents are advised to:

• Report criminal behaviour to the Police by calling 999 (emergency only) or 101.
• Report any other concerns about student behaviour to the University’s 24-hour telephone helpline (222141).  All cases will be logged, shared and reviewed (including those reported retrospectively) utilising a multi-agency approach following a data sharing agreement signed last year.

New arrangements will also be in place to provide feedback to residents about their community concerns, following a review carried out over of the summer.  The new arrangements will include:

• Feedback to individual residents (introduced for the first time two years ago)
• Termly reports
• An end of term annual report

In addition to this the Police, Charnwood Borough Council and University are also investigating whether joint feedback ASB reports can be produced at more frequent intervals (approximately every 4 to 6 week)

The University is also in the process of revising its disciplinary procedures to ensure that any cases that are taken forward to discipline are implemented in a timely manner. 

Richard Taylor, Chief Operating Officer for the University comments: “Once again the University and its partners have committed considerable resources to develop a significant package of measures for the start of term which will help ensure our students settle to life in Loughborough as quickly and smoothly as possible. We have continued to listen to resident concerns and we hope they will find the new arrangements regarding incident reporting and feedback to be helpful.

Inspector Nathan Kirk, Commander Loughborough Local Policing Unit said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming the new and returning students and helping them settle into the area as quickly and easily as possible. There will be extra patrols in and around the University campus, and in the town centre, for the first few weeks of term to help students and reassure local residents.”

Charnwood Borough Councillor David Snartt, Chairman of the Charnwood Community Safety Partnership, said: “We all want students to come back and have a great time in Loughborough and hopefully these initiatives will help make sure they do exactly that. We have greatly improved the way that we record community concerns and this will mean that we have a more comprehensive picture of any issues that arise.  The will enable us to better target our resources to areas of greatest need.”

Last year students carried out over 28,000 hours of volunteering in the community and residents are also reminded that the Students’ Union is always looking for projects to undertake in the community.  Any local group or organisation in need of ready, willing and able volunteers should contact Phil Jenkins, Vice President Action via email: philjenkins@lsu.co.uk or telephone 635000.