#Students' Rights
Target:
Heythrop College
Region:
United Kingdom

The college canteen provides meals for the catered halls. The fees for the halls are approximately £2,200 per term, which will come to almost £7,000 for the year. This includes the cost of food, which is meant to cover 12 meals per week (breakfast and dinner Monday to Friday and brunch on Saturday and Sunday). This equates to £3.75 per meal. The meals provided, however, have been subject to student complaint en masse.

The system of payment that doesn't include drinks and snacks and forces the loss of monies that aren't spent on the allocated meals is unfair and doesn't give students much choice about what they eat and when. The breakfast has come under especial criticism for the set meal system that only allows people a small box of cereal and two slices of toast, with a full english breakfast and even drinks and snacks available, but at an extra cost.

Bearing in mind that other University of London halls (eg Garden Halls) charge only approximately £5,500 per year and provide 14 meals a week (bearing in mind that they aren't even on campus) and the meals are larger in size and last longer this seems unfair as the students in halls are paying a lot more and are receiving less.

The meals provided by the canteen are expensive, crippling the students financially and not supporting them enough physically to ensure that they are fully able to commit to their studies to the level that is required of them. The extra charge for things that should be considered as standard (and that are considered as standard in other halls that charge less for the food) is putting students between a rock and a hard place that they are unequipped to deal with.

In response to the large number of complaints that have been submitted to us we have devised this petition to see how many people are unsatisfied with the situation and want some very reasonable changes to be made.

We, the undersigned, call on the College to:

1. Revise the payment system that currently means people lose money they don’t spend on meals to ensure that this is not the case and that monies roll over.

2. Increase the amount of food allowed at breakfast to include a full English breakfast as standard.

3. Revise the pricing or inclusion of drinks and snacks in the allowance.

4. Revise the system of set menus.

5. Better provision for vegetarian students.

6. Make it possible for people to choose which two of the three daily meals (breakfast, lunch and diner) they are using their allowance for.

7. If sufficient allowances to student satisfaction cannot be made, other options regarding the canteen should be properly considered, including…
a. the removal of food monies from the compulsory fees
b. a change of provider
c. a change of system
i. taking into account the system implemented by other University of London Halls of Residence (in particular the Garden Halls).

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The Change the Heythrop College Canteen petition to Heythrop College was written by HSUWelfare and is in the category Students' Rights at GoPetition.