Staff car parking limited to student halls during Open Days on 15 and 16 June
Monday, 11 June 2018
We will be welcoming thousands of visitors to our Whiteknights Campus for our first Open days of 2018 on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 June.
With more than 800 cars expected on each day, we will be reserving car parks 1A, 2, 7, 9 and 10 together for Open Day visitors at Whiteknights and the Whitegates Car Park at London Road.
This means that parking for staff on both campuses will be extremely limitedwith priority given to staff directly supporting Open Day activities. We are therefore asking all other staff who work on the Whiteknights or London Road campuses, and who usually drive, to review their usual working and travel arrangements for Friday 15 June, and, where appropriate, Saturday 16 June.
Work from home
For those staff who usually travel by car, don't have any meetings planned, and who are set up to work from home, are strongly encouraged to talk to their managers about working from home on Friday 15 June.
Travel by train with free bus ticket to Whiteknights campus
For those staff who need to come to campus and can travel by train, we would strongly encourage you to do so. As an incentive, we are offering all staff free return bus tickets to and from the station on the 21 and 21A. The buses will be operating a term-time timetable with buses every five to ten minutes. Tickets will be available from Whiteknights House reception from Monday 11 June - just pop in and pick up your free return ticket.
For those staff who need to come to campus and for whom driving is the only option, there will be parking available for staff in all our halls, on a first come first served basis on both days. Car share with colleagues where you can.
During the Open Days, we will of course free up car parking spaces where we can. There will always be parking space in the main campus car parks for disabled members of staff who hold a blue badge.
Please note that the roadworks on the Shinfield road (scheduled to complete at the end of June) are likely to cause traffic delays for both those travelling by car and by public transport so please do allow extra time for your journey.
On Open Day preparations, Vice-Chancellor, Sir David Bell, said:
"I am very grateful to everyone across the University who works to make our Open Days so successful. Last year, we created a sector-leading experience. This year, our plans are to make Open Days even bigger and better.
"Given the importance of Open Days to our student recruitment plans, we are giving priority car parking to our visitors and those staff supporting the events. It would help us enormously if you could plan now your working arrangements for 15 and 16 June. In particular, I would ask you not to drive to the Whiteknights or London Road campus unless that is really necessary.
"Your cooperation will be of great assistance to our excellent colleagues in Estates and Facilities who work so hard to ensure that parking on Open Days runs smoothly and successfully. Many of our visitors will have travelled a considerable distance to visit us and we want their experience to be memorable for all the right reasons."