University of Bath - cheapest accommodation £360 per month - currently not worth 1p

bouncydog1

DD lived in Woodland court first year which compared to home was very basic! However when she moved into private rented second year we realised how good and cheap the Uni accommodation actually was.

Third year accommodation is worse and IMO almost inhabitable but for student accommodation it is quite good. Bath is an expensive town but has loads of positives. for a start it's safe for Uni students. Some of the other Unis we looked at had much less student infrastructure. At the end of the day it's all a balance. bath Uni has a good reputation and T the end of the day you have to weigh up whether you want great accommodation or a degree from a well rated Uni.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Again I well understand the suggestion of a balance in these things, bouncydog1, and you rightly mention Bath is seen as a generally safe location for students - I have not seen anything to disagree with you in terms of local crime stats - but if a student is unsafe in their accommodation e.g.

• no drinking water on the same floor for two thirds of the occupants,
• poor hygiene in the kitchen due to abdicated cleaning by the HMO managers
• reported poor hygiene in the static cold water system
• poor hygiene in the kitchen because of a dumb implementation of recycling and waste disposal
• lack of proper cooking facilities in an HMO shared by 13 viz just two little microwaves and a standard domestic single oven

Then the balance even at the basic level, is lost.
There is no excuse for it and my discovery that the university may have started giving £35pw cashback on the rent to some would be a further example of bad HMO management - it would be a form of corruption and bribery (and not 'negotiation') to ask a renter to turn a blind eye to an essential standard in exchange for token cashback.

In the context of poorly managed accommodation, I don't care what the university academic standard might be. Until we see evidence of the accommodation rapidly being put right, this neglected HMO management might, by association, suggest that the perceived or currently pervading reputation of the academic management might be more by luck than judgement.

kbrumann

Take a degree at a university in the Netherlands, France, Sweden or Germany. There are even plenty of degrees taught in English. Accommodation is cheaper and you don't pay tuition fees.

For engineering look at e.g. ETH Zürich, Technische Universität München / TUM, RWTH Aachen, Politecnico di Milano, Universität Karlsruhe / KIT, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, TU Berlin, TU Darmstadt, TU Dresden, Lund University, Sweden, Grenoble INP, ...

V_Chic_Chick

HMO licencing in BANES (not difficult to find) http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/housing/landlords-and-tenants/additional-licensing

Now, go back under your bridge and be quiet

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

V_Chic_Chick wrote: »

HMO licencing in BANES (not difficult to find) http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/housing/landlords-and-tenants/additional-licensing

Now, go back under your bridge and be quiet

Glad you have arrived where the rest of the class started a week ago VCC. Now try this:

Open http://www.bristol.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/housing/private_housing/hmol_info_std-guide_0.pdf on your chosen device. Hit Ctrl-F and type in drink - how many hits so far ?

I am not a medical student, but last time I checked, a supply of clean drinking water was a major recommendation for a healthy life anywhere on our planet or even off it for humans whether it be for multiple occupation 1960s Apollo capsules, 12, missions and test missions to the moon, for the use of (fuel cell by-product - problematic), the bamboo hut on the 1947 Kon-tiki raft (275 gallons), Scott's final tent in 1912 (melted snow anyone or ... ?) or indeed any kind of university accommodation before or since (apparently still problematic). Funny that, eh?

Now open http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sitedocuments/Housing/Landlords-and-tenants/al_conditions_amended.pdf Hit Ctrl-F and type in drink - how many hits ?

So nothing in the published Bath/bristol.gov.uk HMO standards nor the additional BNES bathnes.gov.uk HMO conditions/standards

Now try a Google search as follows:

(site:spelthorne.gov.uk "drinking water" HMO) OR (site:bathnes.gov.uk "drinking water" HMO) OR (site:bristol.gov.uk "drinking water" HMO)

Why, might you ask, are we looking at bristol.gov.uk? And why spelthorne.gov.uk? Last one first - spelthorne.gov.uk was mentioned in my original post. It is one of our control experiments in our analysis of aspects raised by the thread topic.

But why Bristol? Well, it appears that whomsoever administers bathnes.gov.uk could not be bothered to do any more than a cut and paste from bristol.gov.uk when they created the page you linked to and created that top link labelled HMO Licensing Standards

Doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that anyone in Bath has thought independently about drinking water for anyone linked to an HMO or even about drink full stop (not even beer!), does it ? :mad:

As an exercise, now you may be getting into the swing, you can substitute the word potable for drinking - some of the more enlightened local authorities use that word in their HMO standards. Somerset's neighbours Dorset, for example. Happy Googling !

PS You may return to the back of the class and play trolls and bridges there if you wish but you do it quietly, will you? And Dunroamin, be circumspect about why you are applying thanks to insults. There are important wrongs to be put right, and you may join us in that task if it doesn't bore you too much.