Oxford Brookes University has sent councillors the following update.

1. Student Community Warden Scheme

This year we have a team of 16 Student Community Wardens, one of which takes on the role of Team Leader. The activities they have been involved with so far are training, the implementation of the House Champion Scheme and dealing with disputes. They continue to work closely with the Council and Thames Valley Police. Following the activities from Semester 1, the Student Community Wardens continue to conduct walkabouts in the areas which are densely populated with our students. This involves door knocking to:

 provide advice to local residents, including student residents regarding living in the community.

 provide local residents an opportunity to talk about issues such as litter, car parking, anti-social behaviour and noise.

 distribute packs to all student households; giving advice from the Council on managing their waste

2. The House Champion Scheme

The House Champion Scheme is a joint initiative with the two universities, council and police working to provide key communication to student properties and encourage them to nominate one student as a House Champion. We are targeting houses in East Oxford and Gipsy Lane Estate. The scheme has been positively received by students and we have over 200 nominated House Champions. This semester, now that we have a large number of House Champions in place, we have developed a programme of communication, which takes the form of a monthly bulletin. This bulletin is sent via email to all the House Champions with key messages from the council, police and universities. There is also the offer of a free gift each month. These messages and gifts will act as a reminder to the students of their role as House Champion and hopefully encourage them to participate in the scheme should it continue in future years.

3. Complaints Report

Since the beginning of this academic year, September 2014, we have received a total of 98 complaints which is lower than last year as we had received 131 complaints by the end of February 2014.

In line with previous years the majority of complaints received have been regarding noise, with 68 of the total 98 (69%). The percentage of noise complaints compared to other categories of complaints is higher 69% up from 66% last year. Anti-social behaviour complaints are on a par with last year at 15 (same as last year), parking complaints have gone down from 15 last year to 8 this year. The litter complaints have also significantly decreased from 14 last year to 7 this year. The majority of complaints which were confirmed as involving Brookes students were resolved in the initial stages, 13 had to be taken to second stage (which is down from 22 last year) and two cases were referred for disciplinary action, which is down from the four referred to disciplinary at the same time last year