Back in February, CRRA wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Canterbury about the effect the anti-social behaviour of some of his students is having on the quality of life of Riccarton residents:

February 16, 2011

Dear Dr Carr

At the most recent meeting of the Central Riccarton Residents’ Association Inc it was resolved to write to you at the start of the academic year with our increasing concerns with regard to anti-social behaviour being exhibited by some students of the University of Canterbury and in particular by some students living in rented properties in the greater Riccarton area.

For a number of years residents have had their private property damaged and even more so their quality of life constantly being diminished by the boorish and drunken behaviour of students who live in their neighbourhood – students who form only a minority of the total university student roll.

Residents have found that the University of Canterbury has been to date unresponsive to their concerns and indeed has sought to dismiss the anti-social behaviour of these students as just the behaviour of private citizens. The reality, however, is that these students are not just private citizens. They would not be renting properties in Riccarton were it not for the fact that they were fee-paying customers of a university which itself is greatly supported by the taxpayer. They are in our area solely because they are enrolled full-time at the University of Canterbury.

Our Association, which has legal standing by virtue of local government legislation, believes that the University of Canterbury should have higher expectations of its students as members of a civil society and indeed should impose considerably greater sanctions on students who vandalise private or public property or who set out deliberately to make life a misery for their neighbours. Residents who have complained in the recent past have invariably found that their names have been given to the offending students who retaliate against the residents with increased and cowardly “pack mentality” verbal abuse as well as physical damage to property. In our area this has even included the harassment at nights of women living alone in houses. This situation has resulted, not unexpectedly, in some residents being unwilling to lay complaints out of genuine fear of the consequences to themselves if they do complain. The intimidation wielded by the students who act as a pack in this way amounts, in our view, quite simply to thuggery.

There are, of course, residents in Riccarton who themselves are graduates of the University of Canterbury and it saddens them to see conduct displayed publicly these days which was never a feature of university life in decades past. These alumni even feel that the value of their degrees is being tarnished by the grossly irresponsible actions of what amounts to only a small minority of the total student roll, a minority who are threatening the reputation of the university within the community.