Griffon Studios – Up to scratch?

The Christmas holidays approach, signalling the end of the first term for the residents in the new Griffon Studios. The new halls of residence, branded a part of accommodation option provider GradPad, opened this October exclusively for postgraduate students. Located south of the river in Battersea, it boasts “affordable, secure and high quality accommodation”. It emulates top-notch student living; over 450 modern studio apartments with wireless internet, free gym on site, large social space with plasma TVs, and a host of shops within five minutes walk. But has this ‘GradPad’ lived up to all of these claims? Upon investigation beneath the shiny exterior of Griffon Studios, cracks appear to have emerged.

A regular complaint from the first intake of postgraduate students revolves around the availability of a wireless internet connection. Unknowing postgrads signed their tenancy agreements for Griffon Studios, putting their faith in the assurance by GradPad of “wireless broadband internet connection throughout the building – up to 30mb”. Unfortunately it seems so far they have failed to provide such a reliable service. Residents have reported the internet, both wired and wireless, to be “dysfunctional”. Upon complaint, StudentCom informed the residents that they did not anticipate the volume of mobile devices, expecting most of the students to stay plugged into the internet, despite advertising claims made online. StudentCom have since been working to provide more IP addresses in order to improve the service.

In addition to these problems, a resident informed Felix that one of the two lifts in Block A, which serves ten floors, was out of service for over a month. Putting this into perspective, that is more than a third of the tenancy so far. The break down of washing machines is also reported frequently. Again in Block A, one of the three washing machines was out of order for a week at the end of October, with a second also failing. This left one washing machine for the 225 studios in the block. Heating of the flats has been highly variable – with reports that some studios have no heating.

As a result, the experience for some has not matched the high prices of rent and the “high-quality” promised by John Anderson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Imperial College Fund who invested jointly in the project with Berkeley First. Originally there were two price brackets differing by the size of studio, £235 for 19sq metres and £300 for 22sq metres. Early in October it was discovered by residents that a new lower price bracket had been included for 11 of the 452 studios at £195 for 19sq metres with half-sized windows. This was met by speculation that this was an attempt to entice more tenants in to fill up the empty studios, which are still not at 100% occupancy.

Imperial and Berkeley sold the property to Legal and General Property (LGP) for £116m in September, contributing to Berkeley’s 64% increase on profits from the same period last year. LGP will lease the property to Imperial for a 45 year period, thereafter returning the property.

An Imperial College spokesperson commented, “As is often the case with new developments, there have been occasional issues during initial occupancy… the Residence Team and the developer have been working closely with the residents to resolve any problems.”

Griffon Studios is still in its infancy, at just one term into occupancy. The Residence Director and team welcome feedback openly, addressing issues raised through email. Some residents have expressed hope for their future tenancy. 2012 is almost upon us and perhaps with it comes a new term and new improvements. Indeed, it has been noted by some residents that the situation has improved.

Does this excuse the failings observed so far? As a student the mind always returns to the issue of money. With prices of up to £300 per week, students at Griffon Studios will likely have little time for excuses, especially over the coming holiday period.