Some postgraduates critical of h-bar

The new-look postgraduate bar is set to open this Friday, with pictures released by the Union and College previewing what it will look like and explaining the services provided by the new space. With its combination of wood tables and green leather upholstery, the new look bar was described by Kirsty Roy, a PhD student from the department of Materials as “Looking exactly like a McDonalds”. Its previous incarnation, the Holland Club which closed in 2012, had a ‘traditional British pub’ décor (i.e. ‘dark and dingy’) but it was this atmosphere that many of its regulars enjoyed. The name, ħ,prompted half of the people I interviewed to laugh and the other half to face-palm.It was chosen out of a shortlist of student and staff submitted names, with the final choice being made by a committee including one of the Sabbatical Officers. The most drastic change in operation of the bar is the fact that during the evening the space will be available to all staff and students (including undergraduates) for dinner. At this time (between 5-7pm), the evening dinner service currently provided by the Queen’s Tower Rooms will be served in canteen area of ħ, and the postgrad and staff pub area at the back will be closed off behind a movable soundproof partition. Whilst allowing the staff and postgraduates some privacy, they will still have to potentially walk through a busy canteen full of undergraduates to get to the bar, a fact that several staff and PhDs we spoke to were unhappy about. Fortunately for postgrads and staff a-like, this arrangement will not be the case on Friday evenings. As anyone who used to use the old Holland Club knows, Friday nights were by far the busiest evenings, frequently reaching full capacity by 6pm. Instead on Fridays the ħ will be serving [alcohol] from 4pm and the whole space, canteen and bar, with a combined capacity for 250 people, will be serving staff and postgrads only. The previous entrance to the old Holland Club is now closed off and serves as a fire escape, while the new entrance is only accessible via the Sherfield building. Several staff we spoke to predicted calls for this to be re-opened so that access would be available for staff to go enjoy a pint without having to come face to face with their tutees eating. However, according to Union sources the door cannot be used as an entrance due to the conditions of their license. They also mentioned that the new entrance provides wheelchair access (via the new lift) and the bar is also at a wheelchair-friendly height. Despite complaints about the appearance of the bar, and the general bemusement at how the one-space, two-uses policy will actually work when the whole thing opens next week; most people we spoke to seemed resigned that they would probably get used to the new look, with one PhD student summarising it as “sort of like when Facebook updates and I hate it for a bit,” whilst agreeing “that it makes sense that they need the space, but it sucks because I loved the old place.”