As we now know, Roses 2020 has sadly been cancelled owing to the recent Coronavirus outbreak. This is a great shame for everyone at both Lancaster and York university but even more so for 2nd year students at Lancaster because unfortunately we won’t get to take part in a home Roses event. Roses is one of the great traditions of this university and for many was one of the main attractions to study here. I therefore believe that once the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak has been sufficiently contained, hopefully by the next academic year, the Students Union, in conjunction with their counterparts at York, should arrange for Lancaster to host Roses in 2021. Obviously this is a break in tradition in as much as York hosts Roses on odd numbered years and Lancaster on even numbered years however in a more important sense the two universities take turns in hosting and therefore it should remain Lancaster’s turn to host the next event. I know that many of my friends in 2nd year are unhappy about this and because of the scale of the ongoing pandemic, our concerns may go unnoticed. I appreciate this will affect York university students too, however any of their students in 2nd year or above will have already had a home Roses (last year) and their current 1st year’s will be in 3rd year by the time they host again in 2022. Therefore, I believe there are no losers in making this change but this clearly is the fairest way to move forward. 

I’m sure that this idea has already occurred to several people and may well already be in the early stages of materialising however, if not, I hope this idea will seriously be considered by the Students Union.