Okeford House pros/cons??

Very noisy. Don't get room 1, you have complete tossers ringing your doorbell at 3am to let them in because they lost their keys. And it is unrelenting, they honestly don't stop ringing.

i had the chance to keep my room at the end of 2010 but gave it up.

Fire alarms twice a week and you're stuck outside in the pouring rain or snow because the alarm needs to be turned off by a specific company. I remember sitting out in the cold in my pjs at night for 5 hours.

Only plus side is it's close to the shops.

Ohhh really ,,sounds not interesting hehe =/
so which accommodation u stayed ???

Yeah, it was a pain. Especially when they put the vending machine right outside my room. Large congragations met outside ~.~ Also, it was postgraduate only back then (I only got my room because my dad kicked up a fuss about me needing to stay in halls), has that changed since?

After that, I rented a room with my then-boyfriend for 2 years. Ended up with the landlady from hell. Nice flat though. If you end up in a house, expect to pay in the region of £350 a month without bills. After we split up, I ended up in a hotel rented out to students (catered), this was good aswell).

Dorchester house is the newest Halls of Res. Everybody loves it from what I've heard. Most Halls, are unfortunately closer to the Landsdown campus but the U1 bus goes every 15 minutes to the Talbot campus (I recommend getting a bus to the uni an hour before your lectures start because they become completely packed very quickly.), the Yellow Bus 6 will also take you directly to Talbot campus (this comes every 10 minutes). You're looking at a 10-20 minute journey depending on traffic. A return ticket on the 6 was £2.90 last year while the U1 only sold singles which were £1.30 unless you have a pre-topped up card, then I believe the rate was 70p per journey.

If you're looking at renting. Wallisdown, Talbot Woods and the western side of Ensbury Park are very close to the Uni, you can walk easily. But they were a bit of a walk from local shops ect. Winton is ok but some of the houses are in poor condition. Don't go for Charminster - although it's close to shops ect, it's a very rough area with lots of burgleries and thefts. Boscombe and Springbourne would be too far out if you want the Talbot campus, both of those are pretty rough too.

I would personally try for Dorchester House. It's very new, very central, you can pretty much get a bus anywhere. The town centre is a 15 minute walk. Asda and the trainstation are literally across the road. Landsdown is a 5 minute walk. The U1 stops right outside the Halls (and its the first stop) so you would be able to probably catch a bus half an hour before lectures at Talbot. If you have a 9am one, though, the buses will be busy in the hour before.

Everywhere will have noise, just some places are noiser than others Students like to have very loud parties and get drunk then use that as an excuse to act like a ****.

Hope I helped If you need anything, I'll be around.

can someone provide some context as to why its apparently the worst? When i visited it earlier this week it did look a tad dated but idk

yeah, I guess we'll both find out then lol admittedly the shared kitchen in block 5 looked terrible I'm surprised they willingly showed me it, idk if they're planning on sprucing it up but honestly, it looked like it needed to be completely renovated.

I did not know, they did however mention that they have some students staying in the accommodation over the summer which is probably why some rooms looked worse than others, you'd like to think they would have people professionally clean them before others move in. Doesn't help that the building is usually not staffed so idk how it's going to work on move-in day.

I really wish I could choose another accommodation. Chesil sounds way better for the same price. I shouldn't have rushed. On the plus side, Okeford won't be noisy as there are only a few students. Mostly Postgraduates I think. Will have to make do with what we have.

I think you can choose a different room via the portal but im not 100% certain.