The Student Room Group
Chemistry Research, Durham University
Durham University
Durham
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Reply 20
Set fire to it and claim on insurance.
Chemistry Research, Durham University
Durham University
Durham
Visit website
Reply 21
ChrisH2107
You don't have to tell me about estates and buildings! It's very easy to blame Tim Burt, what with him being a Hatfield man, but I guess if the rooms need improving, and as you said, they don't like paying extra, someone had to be put out at some point. Unless I have missed a better way there was of doing it?

(That question at the end is a genuine query, not a wind-up, as it may appear)


My understanding is that the contractors wanted more than 14 weeks to do the work but hinted that it may possibly be finished in 14 if the right money was there etc.

After last summers' rush where a partial refurb of trevs ended up having to have an entire block dropped from the refurb, and they still had contractors in on the friday before the sunday when fresher's arrived I think the uni was very sensible to insist on evacuating Moatside and doing the job properly.

The uni wouldn't have another opportunity like Butler being opened for a while and so with the option of having all easter vacation, easter term, and summer vacation (just over 6months) to get the work done, they took the right decision (in my opinion)

Where I think the uni made mistakes was in the derisory level of compensation offered, they should have at least offered meals in Collingwood or Mildert etc, and the fact that many freshers were under the impression that only S block was being evacuated. Whilst only one block needed work doing to it, it is standard practice for health and safety reasons to set up a "contractors compound" that the public/staff./students etc cannot enter. There is one at the moment on the science site where they are building a new lecture block. Unfortunately with the design of moatside, this compound had to include the other blocks.

If anyone was wondering quite what work may take 6months and definitely 3 to complete, I have heard that S block had been built with its foundations in a natural spring, and major work needed doing to the foundations to stop the damp that got either a room or the entire ground floor (depending on who you get the rumour from) condemned as unfit for human habitation.

In short, if I was Tim Burt I would not use the word consultation if I had already decided, and I would not admit to there being two choices, simply state this is what's happening. Combined with a decent compensation package, there would be a lot less resentment to simply say "Major structural works need to be carried out over the next 6 months, so we are moving you out to Butler and paying £x in compensation. Any Questions?"
Agreed, and it was the entire first (underground) floor that was condemned. The place stank and allegedly the taps didn't put out water, but black gunk. Having seen the state of the rooms on floor 2 and up, I don't want to think what 1 might have been like. (It was locked).
What angered people most was not that the uni did the work, but that they treated us like children or cattle, and didn't offer any compensation.
Reply 23
lol sorry for causing such a big debate here!!
Mattmoy_2000
Agreed, and it was the entire first (underground) floor that was condemned. The place stank and allegedly the taps didn't put out water, but black gunk. Having seen the state of the rooms on floor 2 and up, I don't want to think what 1 might have been like. (It was locked).
What angered people most was not that the uni did the work, but that they treated us like children or cattle, and didn't offer any compensation.


I wish I could have seen the rooms. You don't know of any pictures in existance do you?
Reply 25
Sorry to hijack the thread, but have a kind of related question! If you pay for the optional fee to keep your stuff in your room over Christmas and/or Easter, does this boost your chances of not sharing a room? I know nothing is guaranteed, but I was thinking of paying for this anyway, not just because of the shared room thing!
Sorry to hijack the thread, but have a kind of related question! If you pay for the optional fee to keep your stuff in your room over Christmas and/or Easter, does this boost your chances of not sharing a room? I know nothing is guaranteed, but I was thinking of paying for this anyway, not just because of the shared room thing!

No.