Operation Beech extended to 30 June

Operation Beech, the police anti-noise patrol funded by the University of Bristol, has been extended until 30 June, the end of the academic year.

The patrol runs on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights between 8pm and 2am. Residents who are being disturbed by noise they believe is caused by UoB students can ask for assistance by texting the officers on 07773 816248. See here for more details.

Up to now, Beech has usually been extended on a month-by-month basis. However, it has run every week for the past year, including through the summer of 2021. (Summers have traditionally been quiet times, with few students remaining in the city. But that changed dramatically in 2020, the first year of the pandemic; many students stayed in Bristol and noise complaints soared. [See chart on home page.] ) Numbers compiled by PC Sian Harris, the campus officer attached to UoB, show that Beech received 154 calls in term one, September to December. The monthly breakdown was:

September	43
October	54
November	36
December	21

PC Harris said the call-outs spanned a mix of incident types: "Noise (loud music, people talking/ shouting/ screaming/ singing), parties and disturbances in the street."

She added: "Of all the calls, 2 were confirmed not to be UoB [students]." The highest number of calls in one evening was 13.

Asked specifically how busy Beech was during Halloween and the first week of November (Bonfire Night), she said: "There were 11 calls to Op Beech on the 29th of October. The vast majority of those were for parties so it was a busy night. The 30th was very quiet though, only two calls and one of those was just noise in the street. The start of November was also very quiet."