► Ravenswood, 6 Oct: Mixed response to party

(18010) Party at house on north side of road, observed at 00:40am. Music not overly loud but audible from across the street. Loud voices (and many of them) interspersed with shouting, probably from rear garden. I went to the house shortly before 1am and asked the students to turn the music off, which they did, and control the people outside. As we were talking, quite a few people left. Organiser said they had notified neighbours beforehand, given them contact details, kept windows shut etc. They had also had contact beforehand from both the university and the police, and (I was told) the respective discussions had concluded with remarks to the effect of "Have a great party". (?!!) I replied that I appreciated they had made efforts to be responsible, but that, at 1am*, they should be reducing the impact on neighbours. I thanked them for taking steps to do so. (*The students are with the University of Bristol. UoB guidelines suggest parties should be quiet by midnight at weekends.)

I was in the area to observe the very noisy party at [xx] Waverley Road (see separate report), so I didn't stay at Ravenswood to monitor the situation. On Saturday afternoon I distributed leaflets to properties in Ravenswood Road and Cotham Vale (at the rear).

Responses have been mixed. To excerpt:

Ravenswood resident who lives on the other side of the street:

"The students ... sent us a very nice note and gave us a number to call if there were any problems. They said it was a 21st birthday party and a private party. We took them over a bottle of wine before the party and had a chat with them. We asked them to be careful about keeping the windows and doors shut and keeping people inside. They said they had thought about this already and would do so. Our bedroom is at the front of our house and we were not disturbed at all. In fact when we went to bed at 10.30 we couldn’t even hear any music."

(This resident also references the party on Waverley, more than 100m away.)

Ravenswood resident:

"It was quite a bad night last night with noise from [xx] Ravenswood, [x] Ravenswood [the house referred to in this report] and Waverley Road (the worst) plus noisy groups of people in the street although thankfully all quiet by 1.30 am. ... A total of four complaints to submit for last night."

(At the time of writing, I don't know if this resident has submitted formal complaints.)

Ravenswood resident:

"I wasn't disturbed by this party specifically."

(This resident says she was woken at 4am by students of a different property.)

Cotham Vale resident who lives at the rear of Ravenswood:

"The noise in the garden kept us awake. They had a smoke machine out there! We had been out and didn’t go to bed until 1am at which point it was still going on. ... Our neighbour below was also affected ... Parties in that particular house were a problem last year."

Updated 20/10/18: I received an email yesterday from another Ravenswood resident, who says: "We were given thoughtful forewarning about the party and responded positively. I did hear noise from the party, but it seemed to me no more disturbing than any adult party in the neighbourhood. There was also some noise in the street later, but no more than we hear most weekends from groups of people going home. The students in number [x] are friendly and polite (as were the students last year). If they have an occasional party, that seems to me acceptable."