Posted on Thu 21 Nov 2013 at 11:41 by
Zahid Raja
The issues:
- Angry students: students are well and truly unhappy about the situation around parking and they have a right to be. We have a large number of students and not enough spaces to park. Whether this is on campus, or the area in which we live in the local community. Also, the busses are really, REALLY expensive.
- Angry local residents: some local residents have beef because they believe that students are parking in areas that rightfully belong to them. (Cos obviously, students aren’t local residents in Swansea - sarcasm klaxon.)
- Angry hospital patients: this is actually a significant issue. Students are parking the car park at singleton hospital next to campus. This car park is for hospital staff and patients. Students shouldn’t park there unless you’re attending a valid hospital appointment. This is a serious issue because many patients for A+E are unable to park in emergency situations due to a large number of student vehicles. This obvs isn’t cool and could have a serious impact on someone’s life, so please stop parking in the hospital car park.
What we’re doing:
- Making sure people get the facts right: I’ve hit out a few times when the local authority, the University or anyone else has said that it’s students in their entirety that are causing the problem around the University / the hospital. The fact is that University staff also park around brynmill in the morning instead of parking on campus which is either near impossible or too expensive. It’s also a fact that University staff also park in the hospital car park.
- Student Liaison Forum: Rebecca Grimes, the Welfare Officer and I attend many meetings with local politicians where we hear out local issues and try to resolve them in a positive light.
- Getting people on message about students: Students contribute positively to the life and culture of Swansea as a city and county. At the next meeting of the Student Liaison Forum, representatives from Students ’ Union from the two Universities in Swansea will deliver a presentation on the positive impact of students on life and culture.
The University has also been making a great effort to communicate the economic benefit of Universities on the local region, for example, see this article: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/swansea-universitys-bay-campus-project-6309101 The article explains how Swansea University’s Bay Campus project will deliver 12,000 jobs by 2020. Without students in the region, that would be 12,000 fewer jobs in the city.
What you can do:
- STOP parking in the hospital cark park.
- Become besties with your neighbour. It isn’t their fault that there are insufficient parking places for them and you. Maybe if you work together you can get things changed? It’s nearly Christmas so you could go over with a Christmas card and a bottle of wine / some chocolates to build some bridges.
- Get political. Local politicians represent you too. They rely on your vote to get elected. Soon they’re going to have local Assembly elections and European Parliament elections. Start talking about this on facebook and twitter. Remind them of this fact when you get in touch with them to tell them that you don’t think students are getting a good deal on parking. We have 15,000 students here. Even if we can get a small fraction of people to engage, local politicians will start to listen. Here is a link with their contact details: http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=619
So get in touch with them and give them your perspective on not just parking issues, but also any other issue you might have with the city and county of Swansea.
If you’ve got any questions or want some help getting in touch with local politicians, drop me an email: president@swansea-union.co.uk