Disappointed students lose battle to stay in Chelwood

30th Oct 2009

THE fate of the 22 stu­dents cur­rently liv­ing in Chel­wood Uni­ver­sity Accom­mo­da­tion was decided in a small meet­ing this week, where it was con­firmed that after the Christ­mas hol­i­day, they would be moved on to other accommodation.

Leslie Stew­art, (the Vale Man­ager), Ed Sparkes, (Vice Pres­i­dent for Hous­ing and Com­mu­nity) Mark Har­rop, (Pres­i­dent of Aitken wing) and a small num­ber of res­i­dents met to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion. They vowed their sup­port for the stu­dents dur­ing the time of tran­si­tion and aim to try and keep as many stu­dents together as possible.

The hard deci­sion was made as the Uni­ver­sity has entered into a con­trac­tual agree­ment to use the build­ing for con­fer­ences for 2 out of the 12 weeks of next semes­ter and unless they can­cel and no more con­fer­ence requests are made, the stu­dents are set to move out per­ma­nently over Christmas.

200 stu­dents signed a peti­tion from a vari­ety of halls of res­i­dents in protest over the stu­dents being removed from what will have been their home for 12 weeks. Mark Har­rop, Pres­i­dent of Aiken Wing, said the sit­u­a­tion was ‘frus­trat­ing’ and added ‘I would be per­son­ally very dis­ap­pointed if they [the stu­dents] had to move out and I think that in these excep­tional cir­cum­stances, they [the Uni­ver­sity] should have made an exception.’

Some stu­dents have felt that the Uni­ver­sity have put busi­ness before the stu­dents in this sit­u­a­tion with two con­fer­ence book­ings over rul­ing the wishes of 22 stu­dents, how­ever it was stressed how the Uni­ver­sity is con­trac­tu­ally bound and so there is noth­ing that can be done to rec­tify the issue now.

The Uni­ver­sity is also going to sit down with small groups of stu­dents at a time and try to move as many as pos­si­ble into their cho­sen accom­mo­da­tion with some­one else from Chel­wood, there­fore hope­fully min­i­miz­ing the stresses of mov­ing again and eas­ing the transition