Mini News Stories

Notts PCC Caroline Henry secures £1.1 million to make streets safer for women

Newly elected Notts Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Caroline Henry has secured more than £1 million in Home Office funding to improve street safety for women in Worksop and Sutton-in-Ashfield. The funding will be targeted at new CCTV cameras, better street lighting and environmental improvement work, as well as additional policing enforcement.

The Commissioner is working closely with Notts Police and local authorities to prioritise women’s safety, listening carefully to the views of locals and focus groups on their concerns. Henry welcomed the new funding and said, “I promised to speak up for Nottinghamshire - at the highest possible level - and secure every penny I can to improve the safety of our county.” She added, “This funding is proof that the Government is taking note and really values the way we solve problems here.”

Nationally, the Government is allocating £25 million to PCCs across England and Wales to tackle street safety and reduce violence against women in public spaces. Earlier this year, Henry also secured £432k for safety improvements in Lenton. However, many women insist this funding doesn’t go far enough, as safety concerns on campus continue to rise.

Backlog of UoN medicine applications after Covid A-Level ‘fiasco’

Since the A-level grades ‘fiasco’ back in 2020, it has been significantly more difficult to receive university offers for competitive courses such as medicine and dentistry. Due to the algorithm which downgraded 40% of Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs) by one or more grades, and then the Government’s U-turn back to awarding the original CAGs, more students met entry requirements than universities had the space or resources for. As a result, many students were forced to defer or, having now met the requirements for more prestigious courses, decided to reapply, increasing the strain on the 2021 applicant pool.

Several universities, including UoN, proposed the Department of Education’s (DfE) ‘Medical and Dental School Student Incentivised Transfer Scheme’, which involved place holders being offered £10,000 in grant to defer their place at the medical school.

This all comes despite the Royal College of GPs estimating that the UK needs 20% more undergraduate medical places to serve the growing population. Currently, the number of medical places offered are capped by the government due to the cost of training a doctor and limited placements. As the 2022 cohort starts the application process for universities, UoN may face the same competitive squeeze again, having to select applicants from an overcrowded field.

By Anna Boyne

Notts researchers watch plants ‘drink’ water in ground-breaking discovery

In a scientific first, UoN researchers have found a way to observe how water is absorbed and circulated inside plants. The study, led by Dr Kevin Webb of the Faculty of Engineering, could be instrumental in the future development of drought and flood resistant crops, and it is particularly pertinent given current problems in feeding the world’s population caused by climate change.

Previously, the inability to study water uptake in plants was a major obstacle for researchers trying to understand more about the movement of fluids in plant cells. Dr Webb, however, applied a new technique: “To observe water uptake in living plants without damaging them”, he said “we have applied a sensitive, laser-based, optical microscopy technique to see water movement inside living roots non-invasively, which has never been done before.”

Researchers are now looking at replicating the same processes for human cells, which could lead to a greater understanding of diseases in humans which involve fluid movement – such as cataracts, macular degeneration and glaucoma. The team are also currently looking to commercialise this research, which, if successful, will open up further opportunities within this field.

By Rory Beveridge

Government plans mean students will pay back university loan earlier

Before coming to the University of Nottingham this year, around 95.8% of students took a necessary and legally binding step: taking out student finance. Originally, the repayment threshold, the minimum income a graduate must earn for loan repayments to be taken, was £28,295 a year. With median starting salaries for University of Nottingham graduates being £24,000-£26,000, the average graduate probably would not have to make any loan repayments in their first year of work.

Under current Government plans, however, there will be a cut to this repayment income threshold to only £23,000 a year, meaning those on lower incomes after graduation will also be expected to start paying back their loans. Those already above the repayment threshold would be expected to pay an additional £386 a year.

This move would mean over 70% of Nottingham students would now have to start repaying their loans within one year of graduating. While some feel this would help reduce the £160 billion national student debt burden by enabling more students to repay their loans, others feel it would have a disproportionate impact on poorer graduates.

By Sarina Rivlin-Sanders

Broadgate Park assaults: Two attacks in two weeks

Freshers have been left anxious as Broadgate Park (BGP) accommodation saw two separate incidents of assault within two weeks of one another in late September this year. The first assault occurred on a bus returning to BGP. Witness accounts report a male setting off a Rape Alarm on the upper deck, irritating those present. After a student requested him to stop, the male who had been setting off the alarm ‘lashed out’, resulting in serious facial injuries. CCTV footage from the bus and Ocean Nightclub is being reviewed to obtain clear images of the person responsible.

The second assault took place on the BGP site itself. The student concerned was asked by a female if he had a lighter. When he said he did not have one, he was then punched by an unknown male. The student was subsequently admitted to Queen’s Medical Centre with a fractured jaw. The Police have been contacted and are currently investigating the incident.

Speaking to Impact, one student living at BGP said: “Whilst I feel safe at Broadgate most of the time, the recent assaults have exposed the vulnerability of students in halls.” They added, “Management could be doing a lot more to reassure students and increase security measures.” Conversely, another student continued to think that it “seems quite safe as long as you’re sensible”, and the assaults that have taken place are merely “unavoidable anomalies”.

By Natasha Saxton

Florence Boot Hall to undergo multi-million pound makeover

In September of this year, work began on the £15 million refurbishment of Florence Boot Hall, the first entirely female hall of residence at the University. Named after the successful philanthropist and businesswoman, the investment in Florence Boot is set to be the start of the regeneration of all University of Nottingham accommodation.

This 200-bed residence will be completed and ready to welcome students for the 2022/23 academic year with entirely refurbished and updated interiors. LED lights, air source heat pumps and triple glazed windows will be fitted to ensure the accommodation is eco-friendly.

The project manager and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Todd Landman, stated that: “The newly refurbished halls will offer our students accessible, comfortable, digitally enabled and modernised accommodation that also embraces the history and tradition of the hall.”

By Arabella Mitchell