How we keep you safe in our venues

Y Plas night club is one of the largest Students’ Union clubs in the UK. Each week, on average 8,000 students attend the popular club nights – we are proud that these events are a core part of the Cardiff student experience for a large proportion of the student body.

Supporting students to have fun in a safe manner will always be a fundamental part of how we organise and deliver events. As a not-for-profit venue, we invest heavily in safety initiatives which we have outlined below. In return, we require our attendees to help keep themselves and others in the club safe by playing their part to keep the student community safe and ensuring at all times, their behaviours in the club are in line with our code of practice.

Whilst serious incidents in our clubs are minimal, we are aware that damaging and, on occasion, harmful activity can still occur. We take all reports of inappropriate, harmful and unlawful behaviours incredibly seriously and want to encourage any student who experiences these types of behaviours to report it. Our staff and security team are on hand during events to handle complaints, if you do not feel comfortable reporting at the time, please see the reporting and accessing support section below.

Safety Initiatives

Cardiff Students’ Union has been working with local partners for many years to deliver other initiatives that will help to safeguard your personal safety at night. These initiatives are available for any Cardiff University student to use:

Safety Bus

We have partnered with South Wales Police to deliver the Cardiff Safety Bus. The bus patrols the city centre every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night and will provide help to anyone who needs it.

Private Medical Staff

During each club night event, we pay for private medically trained staff, with trained paramedics, to be in our venues to support with any medical issues that occur.

Safe Taxi Scheme

No matter where students are in Cardiff, you can get home safely with just your student card thanks to our Safe Taxi Scheme. We work in partnership with Veezu to help students get home safely without any cash. Find more information about the scheme here.

Where You At app

Brand new for 2024, we’re working in partnership with the Where You At app. The app helps you stay connected and find your friends in our venues. You will have access to offline venue maps, friend finding and event information – you can also send pings to notify friends of your location offline. Keep connected and enjoy your night!

Download the app

Drink Spiking Testing Kits

We take the personal safety of our attendees very seriously. Drink spiking with drugs is incredibly uncommon. Spiking by injection is even more uncommon. There has been a significant amount of media exposure contributing to a very real fear. Research however suggests that it is actually very rare.

If you believe you have been spiked in our venues, please report to a staff member who will alert the onsite paramedic for assistance. We have invested in drink testing kits to give you immediate testing options at our venues and would encourage any student who is concerned about themselves or a friend at our events to speak to a staff member to access one of these.

Please do not be hesitant of taking a spiking test kit in the Union, no action will be taken as a result of a positive test for drugs taken knowingly. Medical staff are employed for your safety.

Drink Toppers

All drinks are served with lids*. Bottle stops are available free of charge at all bars for anyone who wants added drink protection.

*Shot glasses don't have lids due to the size of the glass.

Security staff

We employ a large security team to ensure the safety of attendees at events. This includes several dedicated positions in observational roles to watch for, and act on, inappropriate behaviour.

Searches on Entry

We conduct random searches as a condition of entry. For occasional events, sniffer dogs are utilised to support the identification of illegal substances. We have a zero-tolerance approach to possession of drugs in our venues, those caught can face a lifetime ban to all events (club nights, gigs and external events) and we may report to the police.

Extensive CCTV and Body Cameras

We have invested heavily in a CCTV system that has over 300 cameras in operation across our venues. On top of this, many of our security staff will be wearing body cameras to support gaining footage of incidents where required to aide police investigations.

Staff Training Programme

We’re developing our staff training programme to include information about how to handle inappropriate behaviours and to spot signs of drink tampering.

These initiatives are regularly reviewed to understand the effectiveness and we welcome any feedback or improvement suggestions by emailing SUCustomerService@cardiff.ac.uk.

Student Behaviour Expectations

To ensure all our club night and event goers can enjoy themselves in a safe manner, we require all attendees to always behave in an appropriate and respectful manner. If behaviours fall short of our Code of Practice, you will be ejected from the venue and may face a venue exclusion/ban for periods ranging from four weeks to a permanent lifetime ban, we may also pass information about the incident on to the police or to the University complaints procedures.

Length of bans and any subsequent action will be determined on a case by case basis depending on the specifics of the incident.

However, students and guests attending events are advised that the venue has an absolute zero tolerance to drugs, as well as abusive or aggressive behaviour to any members of staff.

Spiking

Read our new guidance below, developed in partnership with South-Wales Police.

Other information about our venues

Lost property

We experience a large volume of lost property handed in at our venues. Please do take care to look after your belongings and check them into our cloakroom if required. If you have lost an item please visit the Welcome Centre on the 2nd floor of the Students' Union, Cathays or email Studentsunion@cardiff.ac.uk and we will aim to identify and return your property as soon as possible. We aim to keep any lost property for a minimum of 2 weeks from when it is handed in. If you spot a phone, purse or belonging in our venues, please hand into Welcome Centre on the 2nd floor of the Students' Union, Park Place.

Queue Management

Due to the popularity of our events and our requirement to carry out checks as conditions of entry, you may be required to queue to gain access. Please be respectful of you fellow students and security staff when in queuing lanes. We want to get you to the dance floor as fast as possible!

Leaving our venues

Please leave our venues in a respectful manner and listen to instructions from security.

Reporting and accessing support

There are wide-ranging reporting and support services that are in place for students if incidents occur. This can be dependent on the nature of the incident and if you are looking for an investigation to take place or wanting to give feedback on the service or event.

Reporting

Would you like to report what has happened to South Wales Police? If this is the right option for you, please find ways to contact the police below:

You can report anything suspicious, or any situation that makes you concerned about your safety or the safety of others. You can contact South Wales Police on 101 or contact the emergency services on 999 if you think you are in immediate danger. You can also report an incident to South Wales Police online:

• Email: publicservicecentre@south-wales.police.uk
• Website: bit.ly/SWPReportOnline

If you have experienced any kind of violence, abuse, or unacceptable behaviour and you would like support, we can help. Please find some related support links below.

• Get urgent advice if you or someone else requires urgent or out of hours support, here's who to contact.
• Immediate support and safety advice if you have experienced an incident that has caused injury or harm
• Contacting our Security Team who are patrolling campus and happy to talk to you if you have any security concerns or questions.
• Disclosure Response Team if you have been affected by an incident of violence, abuse or unwanted behaviour that is distressing or offensive
• Protecting yourself and your belongings for tips on personal safety and crime prevention
• Online safety and your browsing history, protecting emails and passwords?
• Download our Safezone app to alert Security if you need help or assistance while on campus. If you are off campus the app will alert the police.
• Violence and abuse resources if you want further information on recognising unhealthy, violent, or abusive behaviours and for further information on consent.
• Counselling and Wellbeing Support if you need to talk to someone to manage your emotional health and wellbeing.
• Student Advice if you would like independent and impartial advice

Feedback on our services

If you have any suggestions or improvements on the running of our services, please do get in touch with our customer services team who will be able to pass you onto our relevant teams

Email: SUCustomerService@cardiff.ac.uk