Whilst my last couple of weeks of blogging activity have been almost solely devoted to various ramblings about the Borough Council elections I wanted to write a short post paying tribute to the work of Chris Clark, the outgoing Head of External Relations at Royal Holloway.
When I was originally elected to the Borough Council, I had expected to be deluged with complaints from local residents about late-night noise and poor student behaviour. To date, I have only received two complaints; both regarding parking. Out on the doorsteps over the past few weeks, many residents have praised the University for initiatives such the ‘Big Spring Clean’ which has brought a new lease of life to areas of the village. Speaking to many people in the village, it appears that much of the good will demonstrated towards Royal Holloway has been generated over the past five or so years and in no small part because of the tenacity of Chris and his team in working with groups like the Englefield Green Residents’ Association to work constructively to find solutions to the problems of tensions between the student and resident population.
The Royal Holloway and Runnymede Consultative Group which was founded by Chris last year in order to bring together local councillors, representatives from the Egham and Englefield Green Residents’ Associations and the Students’ Union has already begun to make a difference locally and I am delighted that the group will continue to meet several times a year.
I know that I speak for all the councillors and community groups in Englefield Green and Egham when I say that we’ll hugely miss Chris. We all wish him the very best of luck for the future.
