Endcliffe Residents Should Recieve A Higher Level Of Compensation

AN offer of fifty pounds compensation for the distress caused by continued building work has been branded “insulting” by students of Endcliffe Vale Flats.

The amount, equivalent to just 17 pence per day, is substantially lower than that offered to other Endcliffe Village residents and follows a catalogue of problems with the accommodation since the start of the academic year.

Construction of the University’s new £114 million pound housing has left students:
•SLEEPLESS due to con-tractors being on site from as early as 7.30am every day, even during the exam period.
•SCARED to open their curtains as workmen peer in from outside.
•AFRAID to drink from the tap or take a shower for a number of weeks after a new tank contaminated the water with chlorine fumes.
•SURROUNDED by a quagmire as heavy machinery has destroyed green areas.
•FORCED to trek across it to another part of the site after laundry facilities were unavailable for more than a month after an arson attack.

“It really is quite pathetic the amount they have given us.” Said Ed Miles, a flat two resident.

Lynne Gordon, an Economics student agrees. “I was so angry when I got the email, I couldn’t believe it. It’s been so bad, the noise and then to get £50, it’s just insulting”.
“So many people have written letters and complained and they keep saying they’ll send someone round and look at the area that you’re in and do something but they just haven’t and it’s coming to the end of the semester soon, so when are they going to sort it out? They’re just not going to.”
“The building work was never in our contract. When we turned up we were like, ‘Hang on a minute, they never told us about this’, so we kind of feel conned.”

None of this however comes as a surprise to the Union’s Welfare Officer, Tom Bramall, although he believes the problems may have been lessened if the University’s Accommodation and Campus Services (ACS) department were better at talking to tenants.
“At times this year I have been speechless at some of the standards of accommodation that students have had to face, especially on the Endcliffe site.” He said. “But the situation they’re in is just horrendous”.
“I think that the information that ACS potentially gave them (students) when they were first looking at their accommodation hasn’t been sufficient to let them know how much of a building site it would be. This is one of numerous examples to the end of my arm where ACS haven’t communicated things properly to students and I think that they really need to address that issue again." Bramall went on to criticise what he perceived as a lack of coherence at ACS, possibly due to personnel changes, and it is this which has most let down students.

“They definitely need to clarify who the students are meant to go to, and where are students meant to complain to. At the moment it’s just miscommunication and non-communication.”