The Knights Park bar (known as ’The SU’ to most) is the heart of the Knights Park community. It’s a place where courses fundraise for their end of year shows, where creatives meet to collaborate and network and where students become interconnected between courses and year groups. It’s the melting pot for students of all backgrounds and practices and the envy of other London art school students who yearn for the tight knit culture that surrounds it.

Contrary to popular belief, the bar is not currently a Student Union run bar.

At the beginning of academic year 2023/24, the bar's ownership was handed to KU’s new catering residents, Aramark. 

It’s widely known that The Knights Park bar is currently in rapid decline. Drinks are too expensive and the vibe of the bar feels corporate (likely down to it currently being run by a company worth $8.16 Billion). It was once a fun and safe place to hang out with friends and meet like-minded creatives but over the last couple of years it’s become a shell of what it once was.

Some of the issues the bar faces:

• This ‘student bar’ is not run with the students in mind
• Both the behaviour and attitude of the middle and upper management of Aramark towards the bar and its staff at Kingston University is incredibly poor
• Drink and food prices are out of touch and unrealistic for the student community
• Aramark have consistently ignored student calls for improvement
• Aramark’s health and safety standards at the bar fall way short of even the most basic statutory requirements

The Solution

Put simply, Aramark should no longer be in charge of running the bar. They’re a multi-billion dollar company who have zero interest in what is so special about the unique tightknit student community that used to safely house itself at the Knights Park Bar.

As an alternative, I am proposing that the bar is run by Kingston’s Student Union. There are several reasons for this:

• It’s common practise for universities to have SU bars on campus
• Having the bar run by the student union would ensure the bar is run in the best interests of the students, listening to their feedback and making it the friendly and welcoming place that it once was.
• New bar management that understands how the one-of-a-kind Knights Park community works, and equally important, knows how to nurture it. 
• Exploitatively high profit margins should no longer be the bar’s main objective. 
• Students would ‘trust’ the bar again. Knowing they are being cared for and listened to by the Union would encourage the community to return to the space.
• As it stands, Kingston's student union has little presence at Knights Park and students don’t feel as though the union represents them.

An appeal to staff, alumni and those graduating at the end of this year...

Let's help the Knights Park bar's legacy continue so that current and future generations of Kingston students can experience what we once did; A fun, loving, creative and unique community, enhancing the entire experience of student life that has a home at the Knights Park Bar.