Residents in an Aberdeen community have hit out after repeatedly being woken in the early hours by noise from nearby student accommodation.
Neighbours living on Willowbank Road say they have been disturbed on several occasions in recent months by people at the ABeleven student halls.
They say they have repeatedly experienced shouting from the complex, as well as fire alarms being regularly activated – while they have also reported people gathering in breach of Covid-19 restrictions.
In the early hours of Monday morning they were woken by a large disturbance, with more than 15 people gathered in the courtyard of the accommodation block with others fighting on the ground.
And those living nearby have described the latest incident as “one step too far”.
One man, who asked not to be named, said: “We live just opposite the halls and can see into the courtyard. There were between 15 and 20 people all shouting and screaming, and there were a couple of guys rolling about throwing punches at each other.
“We’ve had situations in the past, although it hasn’t been to that level. There have been people outside shouting to their friends in the accommodation and a couple of folk going about drunk.
“I know a couple of people who have previously lived there and they said there were parties going on during lockdown.
“There are fire alarms going off every few days for whatever reason. It’s all adding up, and it creates a big disturbance in the neighbourhood.
“It’s pretty pathetic behaviour.”
He added: “We have been quite understanding – I do feel sorry for a lot of the students because they have been cooped up in halls for months.
“We have given them the benefit of the doubt for a while because it’s understandable they’re starting to get frustrated, especially when they don’t get to see their families. However, this was just one step too far.”
In a statement addressing the incident, U-Student – which operates the ABeleven accommodation – claimed none of its residents had been involved.
However, the resident said they had been struggling to reach the accommodation provider.
He said: “We have written to U-Student in the past and tried to call, but we’ve had no response.
“My wife wrote a complaint to them about the latest incident and they came back to say none of the students who live there were physically involved in what happened.
“Why would they be there then?”
In its statement, U-Student said: “We are aware of a disturbance outside our residence around 2:35am on the morning of Sunday March 28.
“The people involved were not residents of ABeleven and as soon as our security team were aware, they attended the scene and the group quickly dispersed.
“The police arrived soon after and we thank them for their quick response.
“We take all matters of disturbance and violence very seriously, and we do not tolerate any violence or anti-social behaviour by our residents.
“In this case none of our residents were involved, however we will be looking into any connections to the group of people involved and appropriate action will be taken.
“We have never received any concerns from our community before, but we encourage any neighbours that have any concerns about our residents to contact us by calling 01224 678830 or by visiting ABeleven during office hours, Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm.”
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