After 48 hours of occupation, the Royal Holloway Anti Cuts Alliance have been successful in their sit in!

Yesterday the management responded to the Alliance’s statement of demands and today the Alliance issued their reply (see below)

Royal Holloway Anti Cuts Alliance would like to thank everyone for the continued support which they have shown, with particular special mentions to Save Our Services in Surrey and Strode’s College, Egham (who managed to ramp up a massive petition of support). We would like to express our ongoing solidarity for all those universities and colleges still in occupation and all campaigns fighting against public service cuts!

Thank you everyone – THIS IS NOT THE END!





“Having read and considered the statement offered by the College management, the Anti Cuts Alliance would like to express their response.

The sit-in at Royal Holloway has been part of a national grassroots demonstration against cuts to education and tuition fee raises involving sit-ins, walkouts and protests. This is part of a broader student-led resistance to the governmental cuts as the movement seeks to further the debate and campaign into colleges, schools and the public service sector. The campaign at Royal Holloway as seen teach-ins, seminars, skills sharing, dramatic monologue, poetry and intellectual debate. The Alliance has also received talks from lecturers, the chaplaincy and local trade unionists.

We ask that the SURHUL do not act in a mediatory role. It is not that we feel they are unsympathetic as we are grateful for their continued support, however as not all members of the ACA are students, it is not appropriate for the SU to convey the collective opinion of the Alliance.

We appreciate your statement and are encouraged by our agreement on several points including the belief in ‘the public value of higher education and the significant returns that higher education makes to the economy and society at large,’ and would echo your fears regarding the serious impact that any reduction in funding will have upon the College’s future sustainability. We particularly embrace the College’s stance on universities being ‘engines of social mobility’ and the recognition that ‘restricting access to higher education would risk denying opportunities to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.’

We feel that there are still issues outstanding in relation to our demands. In the interests of transparency, not only between management and the ACA but throughout the wider College community, we feel it would be beneficial to discuss these matters openly and invite the College management to attend a public meeting on the afternoon of Wednesday 8th December. The meeting would take the form of a panel discussion including members of management, the student body, academic and support staff, and SURHUL. Our goal in holding this meeting would be to encourage wider participation in the debate; having spoken to students across campus the general consensus shows a clear need for more discussion on matters including the following:

- Cut backs/restructuring that has already taken place

- Details regarding the College’s efforts to defend itself against cuts

- The proposed rise in tuition fees

- Executive pay

- The possibility of staff redundancies and further cuts to departments

- An examination of the College’s transparency and commitment to regular open meetings regarding these matters.

In the meantime we insist that College management write an open letter to Phillip Hammond MP and David Willets MP, explicitly representing the growing concerns of its students.

We also implore the university to appeal to the 1994 Group in presenting a unified opposition to both the cuts in funding and rise in fees. We feel that since neither of these proposals is a foregone conclusion, more needs to be done to actively resist these plans. The College’s official line seems to lean towards how to make the best of a bad situation; we would argue that this bad situation is not an inevitability and that College should exhaust all its powers of leverage before considering the implementation of these proposals.

It is a matter of urgency in furthering both the cause and intellectual debate that all staff are made aware that they are free to express their opinions on the issue of public service cuts and tuition fee rises. It has been our experience that several members of staff, although in support of our campaign, do not feel able to publicly express their sentiments.

We appreciate the College management’s cooperation during our sit-in and look forward to their continued commitment to free speech and peaceful protest as we pursue our campaign against cuts locally and nationally.

Royal Holloway Anti Cuts Alliance”