Draconian rules against students will achieve nothing – the locals are just as bad

Upon entering this small town in the Midlands, you are greeted with a sign that says “Welcome to the University Town of Loughborough”, a place that pretty much went unrecognised until 1909 when a Technical Institute was founded for undergraduate students.

Unfortunately, the “Jeremy-Kyle-esque” locals have taken their fun-policing a step too far. Now they want to hit us where it hurts – the clubs and bars.

A “Super Group”, which consists of residents from houses neighbouring the campus, are demanding:

1) Last entry of 11pm for all clubs, including the SU.
2) All clubs are to close at 3am.
3) Any club that sells alcohol after midnight will have to pay a ‘Late Night Levy’ (basically a fine) and this money will go towards the local authority and Leicestershire Police.

Are these people insane? Do they honestly believe that this will reduce the alcohol consumption of the student population in Loughborough?

Students are always going to drink. Fact. There is nothing in the world that could stop this.

How can we possibly resist when alcohol is reduced!?

Clubs offer an environment which allows drinking to be largely isolated to one location, therefore making it easier to control, as well as being able to monitor whether someone shouldn’t have another cheeky Jägerbomb.

What locals fail to understand is that this will definitely not help the amount of noise students can make. Instead of getting rid of the problem, they are just moving it into places where the students live, which are also largely surrounded by residential areas.

If students know that clubs will not be serving alcohol after midnight, then the majority will either get paralytic before they go out. Or they will just have house parties. Now try and imagine how angry the locals would really be.

Although I feel for those locals who are victims of the late-night chunder, they aren’t completely innocent in this situation either.

How do residents groups know that a lot of the trouble that occurs in the town centre and surrounding areas isn’t by local students from the colleges? Or adults after work on the weekend?

When asked to take a photo, this local took a selfie.

As a friend who worked several shifts in one of the “typical local hangouts” in town told me, these people are just as bad as us, even potentially worse.

Having to clean up a local’s “Piss-in-a-Pint” as well as being asked “Darlin’ is there any powder around my nose?” I don’t see how they can’t be unaccounted for.

A neighbour of mine is a dog groomer, and even though we can all hear her pampered pooches barking all day, she still has the audacity to come into our garden, without our permission, scream at us and tell us to turn down some music. Sorry dear, jog on.

These people don’t really care about the well-being of students, neither do they want to take a firm hand in combating the amount of noise we make; they just want to ruin our fun.

These busybodies knew well enough that when they decided to live in Loughborough that it was a university town; they should know what students are like and attempting to change a large part of student culture is just not going to work.