A road where more than half the houses are shared by students is set to be the first to be cleared up by a team of university volunteers.
The University of Sussex has put together a team of staff and students for clear up Viaduct Road tomorrow, blitzing rubbish and graffiti alongside council workers and local residents.
The team has pledged to visit four city streets a year, with Beaconsfield Road, Hollingbury Road and Washington Street earmarked as the next to be visited.
Viaduct Road, where 36 of the 71 houses are registered houses of multiple occupation (HMO), commonly shared by students, has been the subject of concerted efforts by residents, led by the London Road Local Action Team, to improve what they describe as the gateway to the city.
Dean Spears, Head of Housing at the University, said: “When we heard from the London Road Local Action Team that residents wanted to clean-up Viaduct Road, we took the opportunity to bring them and our staff and students together to help.
“Although there are only a few Sussex student households here, we feel very much part of the local community and care very much about the areas around our campus, and the people who live there.”
Other measures taken by Brighton and Hove City Council following requests from the LAT include putting old flower planters as chicanes to slow speeds, and writing to landlords asking them to give the houses a lick of paint.
It was one of these letters which prompted one student landlord to commission graffiti artist Aroe MSK to paint a mural across two house fronts – which was later matched by another on the two faces opposite.
The university says it has considerably increased its engagement with local residents over the last few years and, in November 2015, the University established a permanent presence in the city centre by opening an information centre on Lewes Road.
The mayor, Councillor Pete West, and John Duffy, Registrar and Secretary at the University of Sussex, will welcome the band of volunteers at midday.
Also in attendance will be ward councillor Lizzie Dean, and deputy council leader Gill Mitchell.
Following a short briefing, the volunteers will head in pairs to Viaduct Road, where they will collect rubbish, pick up litter and clear front gardens. Meanwhile, the council’s city clean team will blitz graffiti on the street.
Now all these immature, childish student brats have to do is stop blasting-out loud music at 4am, and they will be halfway to acting like mature, grown-up adults. A young lad living in my street who has Downs Syndrome attempted suicide three years ago, due to the constant noise and anti-social behaviour coming from the student house next door to him
Can we have the same in Bevendean please like living in a dump what with all the rubbish and hedges etc growing over the pavements!!
maybe go to the MP of that area as you will find most of the mess is because residents dont tie their rubbish bags up which means the bags split when we unload them into the back of the lorries and its also down to the students of HMO’s who cant be arsed to recycle anything and leave 6-8 loose bags of rubbish next to their bins a few days before collection and all their waste is torn apart by gulls etc and they hardly ever clean up the mess they caused in the 1st place, as for the residents they are good as gold as most refuse mess is outside HMO’s
About bloody time, as a refuse worker this road can get extremely bad, especially the amount of rubbish that is dumped in the bins, around the bins and in the front gardens of these HMO’s, obviously we cant take rubbish from front gardens due to Health and safety etc (and the fact alot of it is sofa’s etc) the amount of rubbish on this road is 5x the amount i usually see on a street as 75% of the recycling is mixed, contaminated etc so it gets left for weeks as the house occupants of HMO’s cba to separate the materials so, fly’s, birds, rats etc start attacking it as loose bags of rubbish get split over the recycling making it contaminated which increases the amount of refuse we take, maybe now residents and students will start separating their recycling and hopefully the amount of rubbish we take from this street every week will fall slightly and the street will look nicer for people driving into the city