Students feel unsafe walking home: new KU night bus is added

Kingston University responds to student safety, adding a night bus running till as late as 4am, including a stop outside PRYZM nightclub.

Kingston University has announced for the new academic year that the free KU3 Bus service, that ran only up until 10pm, has been replaced with a free night bus service.

Second year fine art student Lukasz Bartoszwicz said: “In my opinion, the night bus is very useful as when I was in first year, me and my friends would go to PRYZM almost every weekend, and we would spend so much money on getting Ubers to make sure we got back to our accommodation safely.”

He adds: “Sometimes if I had to leave the nightclub by myself, Ubers would be too expensive as I couldn’t split the price with others, so I would end up walking back by myself, and obviously it was usually cold and raining; I felt unsafe walking alone in the dark too.”

Case numbers have risen in London, with violent crime increasing by 6.7% in 2024 according to Lodge Service. Despite Kingston being the second safest borough in London, in recent years crime has steadily increased, with 356 crimes reported on the Metropolitan Police website in September 2024: 33 of them were outside PRYZM nightclub.

Safety when walking home alone tends to be more of a problem for women, where in a recent survey, 26 of 40 who took part said they didn’t feel safe walking home at night with 73% of them being females.

Talia Huang, a second-year fashion communications student said: “I only feel safe when I’m carrying small sharp objects with me like keys. Kingston during the day is quite safe, but at night it seems a lot rowdier, and I saw a lot of fights or people trying to talk to me when I was walking home last year. As a woman I feel 50/50 about my safety when walking around just because of that.”

Lukasz Bartoszwicz said: “Walking home at night as a guy can be safer, but in some cases I was still so scared and I would turn my head back always to check nobody was following me. I was also scared drunk men would try to pick a fight with me walking past spoons.

I’m just glad there is a KU night bus for all students of Kingston, it was a much-needed thing after a night out.”

In our survey, 31 out of 40 said they had walked home as their usual method of transport at night before the KU bus. With the new KU bus, 28 out of 40 of those now use the free bus service to get home after a night out or work.

An extra stop has also been added on Portland Road, for students who are not in accommodation anymore and are in housing close to Penryn Road. It still includes all usual stops such as, Clayhill, Seething Wells, and Kingston Hill for those in accommodation.