Once, twice and three times no

The Conservative council has, for at least the third time in recent years rejected my request for them to take the voting rights of students at Roehampton University more seriously.

I asked the council to establish a specific polling district for students based at Roehampton Students Union instead of making them walk more than a mile to their current polling station on the Lennox estate. The Tory council refused.

I asked the council to trial an early voting pilot scheme, which would mean that students could cast their votes over a period of time before polling day. The Tory council refused.

I even asked them to simply make sure they prioritise registering students in broadly the same numbers everyone else is; and to really seriously encourage students to vote by post. The Tory council refused. Barely half the number of students in halls on Roehampton's campus are registered to vote as of today, with huge gaps in the Mount Clare campus in particular.

I start from the very simple proposition that everyone should have equal opportunity to cast a vote in this year's election. Students, whether because they don't feel sufficiently engaged in the local area, or because they have barriers placed between them and voting by the Conservative council, are not getting that equal opportunity.

Yes, students tend to be a more apathetic group than mainstream voters, but it's not the case that they are less interested in politics. Turnout from the university is so much lower than that for other universities of a similar size that there has to be a reason for it. To dismiss this problem so easily is to dismiss students as having as much of a right to a say as any other Putney elector.

That's the local Conservative view of students. It certainly isn't mine.