Union Council vote to support closure of Weeks Hall in Princes Gardens

Union Council voted this week to support the closure of Weeks hall in order to transform it into space that could be used for childcare provisions for academics.

The resolve was one of many from a paper that also included the suggestion to either close or keep Pembridge Hall open too. Union Council voted to support keeping it open, although Union Council cannot officially determine what College decides eventually to do with the properties.

It was explained by Tom Wheeler, Imperial College Union President that, as Weeks halls is a listed building, it is difficult to renovate, and internal structures cannot be modified easily. He also said that Weeks, although containing 67 beds, has rooms with a much larger floor space, and as a whole, the hall is an “inefficient use of space.”

He suggested that the hall could be used instead for childcare facilities for academics, in a move to address the faltering number of women academics that remain at Imperial throughout their career. Wheeler said during the meeting: “I am keen to fight tooth and nail to keep Pembridge hall, as I think it is essential for our accommodation portfolio, and we can also increase its capacity by using some of its excess annexe space. “I’m less passionate about Weeks. It could be put to better use.”

The students present at Council initially were split in their decision to keep Weeks, so as Council Chair, Paul Beaumont was allowed the casting vote. After choosing to vote in favour of keeping Weeks as accommodation and to mandate college for its renovation, a student present at the meeting challenged Beaumont, and asked for an explanation for his decision.

Ben Fernando, RAG Chair, then asked to rerun the vote after the student challenged the chair, and those present were forced to vote again.

After this new vote, enough people changed their minds and decided against mandating College to keep Weeks as a student hall.

Paul spoke to Felix after the meeting, and explained that he used his casting vote to support the ongoing use of Weeks Hall as accommodation because he thought a significant enough proportion of Council had issues with the closure before the vote was rerun.

However, he allowed the revote to go ahead when challenged, and explained that: “I don’t particularly like using casting votes to make democratic decisions.”

Wheeler also said to Felix after the decision was made: “We admit that a reduction of 60 bed spaces close to campus is a loss, however it was a mature decision taken by Union Council to focus the lobbying and campaigning resources of the Union on saving Pembridge, a hall that can be saved.”

However, those outside of the meeting were less than impressed with the news that Weeks may no longer be used as halls. One person on twitter was not happy that the wardening and hall senior team had allegedly not been informed of the plans to close Weeks. “Why did nobody mention this to the wardening or senior team of Weeks? Surely our voices, if any, should be heard.”

Said an academic from Imperial: “Devil is in the details, but it sounds bad for students who want to live cheaply and close to College.”

Said another Felix reader on our facebook group: “I’m really sad to hear this. It’s decisions like these that is a large part of the reason why Imperial doesn’t have the strong alumni network of other universities.” Others said it was a sad decision, although one did describe it as “typical.”

Another continued, “It does go along with Imperial’s accommodation strategy - the one where they don’t care about us.”

Another student was unimpressed with the decision, stating on twitter: “How lovely for the 67 students who now have to live further away from campus. “Maybe it’ll turn out as useful as Garden [hall] has.”

Garden Hall, also situated in Princes Garden but relatively cheaper in price than other halls in Eastside and Southside, was closed in 2013. The hall was shut by the College despite students protesting against the closure. There has recently been construction work on the building, and College Chaplaincy, the multifaith centre for Imperial, was moved into Garden Hall after renovations were done on the East Basement of Beit where it was previously based.