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NEWS: Drunken noise and vandalism escalates in the Holylands
Residents in the Holylands area awoke to the noise of “drunk students” last night, and discovered them in the process of vandalizing young trees outside their property.
Update: All students from one particular street will face a “mock disciplinary” to curtail problems in the area, in which they will be further educated on their responsibilities while living in a residential area.
BY CATHERINE WYLIE and BRENDAN HUGHES
A man living in the area contacted The Gown about the incident, and recalled how his partner was disturbed by screaming and shouting in the street from two students “who had clearly too much to drink.”
“When she opened the door of our home to ask them to lower their voices…she discovered that they were vandalizing one of our young trees,” he said.
The two students argued with the woman before running off.
The incident, which occurred on Rugby Road at around 4am this morning, is the latest example of the anti-social problems in the heavily student-populated area.
The man who exposed the event said residents have found the anti-social behaviour in the Holylands particularly prominent this academic year.
“This morning one of my neighbours approached me to say that the noise of drunk students on Rugby Road was the worst it had been for a long time and that her two young boys were woken up several times throughout the night,” he said.
The man was also astonished at how students nowadays could contemplate carrying out this sort of damage.
“At a time when we are all becoming more environmentally conscious, it seems to be extraordinary that young students who should be at the cutting edge of knowledge have no appreciation of the importance of trees to the health of our environment.”
Students’ Union VP Community Laura Hawthorne said she had not heard about this occurrence, but thanked The Gown for bringing it to her attention.
“We continue to work very closely with University of Ulster and have been staunch in our educating of students on what exactly is appropriate behaviour,” she said.
Miss Hawthorne also said that Community Affairs will take this incident very seriously, and she would encourage anyone who experiences anything like this to immediately make an official complaint.
Update: Miss Hawthorne also revealed that sometime within the next fortnight, all students living in one particular street in the Holylands will be taken to a mock disciplinary in which they will be educated on their responsibilities of living in a residential area. The residents (both student and non-student) will be forced to recognize who is living in their street, and who they are harming with their noise and vandalism.
Tags: alcohol, anti-social behaviour, Gown, holylands, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Gown, vandalism
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 2:06 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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What about drunken RESIDENTS everywhere else in Belfast?! It’s the residents of Belfast that give the city a bad name – not students!
“What about drunken RESIDENTS everywhere else in Belfast?! It’s the residents of Belfast that give the city a bad name – not students!”
I’m from Belfast and I can tell you that we don’t all get on like the students and residents in the Holylands. The trouble with the Holylands is that it is partly down to some students from outside Belfast who can’t hold their drink and go wild because they’re away from home. Punish them instead of making students hollow and useless, “Mock disciplinary hearings,” They give all QUB students a bad name.
I would add however that the way friends of mine tell it, the Holylands has far worse troubles these days than drunken students.
Personally I find it asthonishing that the best Laura Hawthorne could come up with was “At a time when we are all becoming more environmentally conscious, it seems to be extraordinary that young students who should be at the cutting edge of knowledge have no appreciation of the importance of trees to the health of our environment.”
Laura, I don’t think the fact they were vandalising a tree is the key issue here, I think its more that they were vandalising in general.
Plus have you seen some of the clowns Queen’s are admitting these days? You don’t need to be intelligent to get into University, you need to pass your A-Levels, which let’s face it, has become more of an annoyance than a chore.
Your response to this incident is naive at best and gross negligence and deliliction of duty at worst.
I hope that the residents of the Holylands sleep safe in their beds tonight knowing that you’re sticking up for their trees.
Woe betide anyone who should attempt to mess with Mother Earth while Laura Hawthorne is on the scene.
unknownmale said ”Personally I find it asthonishing that the best Laura Hawthorne could come up with was “At a time when we are all becoming more environmentally conscious, it seems to be extraordinary that young students who should be at the cutting edge of knowledge have no appreciation of the importance of trees to the health of our environment.””
If you had actually READ the article properly, you would know that it was the Rugby Road residents comment on the lack of intelligence and sensitivity of students towards non-student residents and that of the environment.
Listen and understand before you open your mouth, you unintelligent, insensitive twit.
noted. i offer my most sincere apologies to Miss Hawthorne who has worked tirelessly this year to ensuring her successor has to deal with just as many problems by holding a “mock” diciplinary.
And I now feel in nessecary to transfer my ridicule to the rugby road resident who felt the need to share with us his concern that, due to malicious student behaviour, his carbon footprint has been enlarged.
Its far to easy for everyone to just vilify students, at the end of the day, that’s all we are; students. We will be responsible and work and earn money to pay the taxes that pay the benefits that most of the Holy Lands “residents” thrive off, but for the moment we are at university, working hard by day, playing hard by night – it’s meant to be the best time of our lives, and it mainly is! I agree riotous behaviour is too far, but a harmless street party? It’s been a student area for a long time now – it will continue to be, so for the sake of all students, find somewhere else to live and moan.