As a College, it’s extremely important to us that you feel safe and secure on campus. If you are concerned about your physical safety, or that of someone you know, I urge you to please contact Campus Security on 01784 443063, the team are available 24/7. Our Wellbeing and Advisory team are also available for you to speak to, and you can contact them at wellbeing@royalholloway.ac.uk. Student Advisory and Wellbeing have also worked with the Students’ Union to introduce RH BeHeard as a way to anonymously report sexual harassment/assault, discrimination and hate crime incidents. Discover more about our work to support campus safety.
We regularly invest in campus improvements; over the last three years we have spent over £150,000 on energy efficient lighting that brightens according to movement and we have a programme to continue to install smarter lighting across campus. Whilst our Egham campus is in a relatively safe area, the shocking kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard shows we can never be complacent. I have asked our Director of Health and Safety and Director of Estates to review our campus and identify if there are immediate, further improvements we could make.
We regularly meet and engage with local elected representatives and seek to influence decisions that affect us. It is frustrating that a number of safety measures we have asked to be considered have not been taken forward. These include supporting the Students’ Union 2017 campaign to prevent the selective switching off of street lighting in the local area at night to more recently calling for a reduced speed limit on the A30 and the widening of the pavement to support social distancing. On Monday 15 March Downing Street announced that the Government would double the size of the Safer Streets fund, which provides local measures such as better lighting and CCTV. In light of this, we will once again approach the local Council to discuss improvements that we believe will help our whole community to feel safer.