“Why did no-one tell us College wants to shut our halls?”

Residents of Weeks are infuriated by the College decision to close their hall, and have demanded an emergency Union Council meeting to revote on the decision not to campaign against the closure.

To add insult to injury, those who live in Weeks only found out about the potential closure once the paper had already been voted and decided upon by Union Council last Tuesday; no one in the hall had previously been contacted by either the College or Imperial College Union.

The residents of the hall first found out about the proposed closure the day after the meeting, after reading Felix’s live tweeting during the Union Council meeting.

As a result, no-one from Weeks was present at the meeting, and are frustrated that they did not have the opportunity to contribute to the debate when it was happening. The hall has already commenced recruitment for the next year’s hall seniors, although they are uncertain if the hall will even be open next academic year.

Felix tried to find out what the proposed closure date is for the hall, but were told that the College has yet to decide on when they will finally shut the doors of Weeks to students for the last time.

College also told Felix that they still haven’t decided on a use for the hall.

College’s Provost’s Board has the power to close Weeks Hall, and email records suggest that the decision has already been made, although there are still further decisions to be made. Felix spoke to Debra Humphris, the Vice Provost (Education), who sits on the Provost’s board. The Provost’s Board is made up entirely of College staff and currently has no student representative present.

It took just under an hour to meet the hundred signature target needed to call an Emergency Council Meeting, after the petition was launched Tuesday night. An emergency Union Council meeting can be called into action by any student, as long as they have the signatures of one hundred Imperial College Union members.

Union Council members were emailed late Thursday evening by Paul Beaumont, Union Council Chair to confirm plans for the meeting, which will take part next month.

The Weeks Hall committee have yet to submit a formal paper, but Beaumont stated in the email that it will most likely address the process by which Union Council made its decision, and the lack of consultation with the residents and the members effected by the closure.

Weeks residents will also be meeting with Debra Humphris, the Pro Rector (Education), Wheeler and other members of staff who were behind the decision to close the hall in the first place.

The Weeks Hall committee have outlined on their petition that they are concerned that the decision made by Union Council was not truly representative of the opinion of the student body, and that it was done “Without sufficient attention given to the detrimental effect on student experience.”

They also describe how they are concerned no representative of the hall was present at the meeting, and there is a lack of information surrounding the closure.

No one at Council was informed as to when the hall may close and what changes may be done to the internal structure for its new purpose. The new purpose also has yet to be finalised.

Franca Hoffmann, a subwarden of Weeks, told Felix: “We have called [for] an emergency Council meeting so there is a specific time allocated to discuss the topic properly, and also to show that students feel strongly about the closure of the hall.”

Felix spoke to the Hall committee ahead of their petition launch, to hear their thoughts on the closure.

Said one member: “I’m pretty sure if they had come to us before [the Council meeting], and told us they had plans to close Weeks, we would have launched a petition sooner to gather support. We would have gone to the Council if we had known it was happening.”

One stressed that the hall is a valuable asset for students, being so close to campus and also relatively low in cost compared to Southside, Eastside and Beit. “It’s only a home to 66 people, but it is still changing 66 people’s lives and changing their student experience as they can afford to live in halls so close to campus.”

Currently, all en suite single rooms in Eastside and Southside halls are priced between £186 to £203 a week. Every room in Weeks is priced at £157 a week, and all are single-bed.

Another voiced concern over the lack of communication between the hall and the Union. “For them [the Union] to say they thought college had spoken to us already, its frustrating. They are the Union, they represent students, and they should ask us.

“If you are going to represent the students, you have to ask the students, you don’t assume someone else has.”

Another thought that the onus lay on College to tell the hall what was happening, and that this is not the first instance College have made decisions without considering the student’s opinions. “It seems problematic that the College is putting the Union Council in this position.

The College didn’t ask the students when it came to Garden Halls, and they are doing it again.”

Added another member: “Imperial doesn’t do anything against this image of it being a “money-making” machine. They can afford not to care because of its ranking and how its oversubscribed by applications as well.”

The paper presented to Union Council included a number of motions, with one being the proposal to campaign against the closure of Weeks and also Pembridge Hall.

The Union Council voted not to campaign against the decision, with 18 out of 30 agreeing that the space should be used for “academic and non-academic space,” as quoted in the paper.

They did vote in favour of fighting the decision to close Pembridge Hall.

Discussions during the meeting included the potential for Weeks to be turned into a childcare facility, in a bid to make Imperial more attractive to academics with children, both those that are presently employed by the College and those who may be considering applying.

In the Union Council meeting, it was stated by Wheeler that the hall was an “inefficient use of space”, with the rooms being far bigger than those in Eastside, Southside and Beit, and also costing less.

Weeks was donated to the College by the British Engineering firm Vickers back in the late 1950s, and is considered a Grade II listed building due to the glass-encased lift that runs through the centre of the hall.

Online minutes of the Community and Welfare Board indicate that questions were raised as to what is happening to Weeks Hall last October. During the Imperial Question Time discussion on Wednesday, Wheeler said that he couldn’t remember the exact time the proposed closure was brought to his attention.

Humphris was also present at Imperial Question Time, and members of the halls committee who were in the studio audience asked her about the decision to close Weeks. She admitted that College could be at fault over the lack of consultation before the decision was made. “We need to get this right, we have a consultation framework, we had a big decision to make – to be fair, we were talking to Tom [Wheeler] and Joe Cooper [Managing Director of the Union] but clearly we’ve not got it right, so we need to work at getting it better.”

In an email sent to members of the Weeks Hall Committee, Tom sent his heartfelt apologies and stated that they were “under the illusion that College had spoken to its residents and employees about the closure.”

However, members of the hall committee remained unimpressed by his response. Said one member: “If you vote for someone to represent you, you want them to do a good job of it.”

When Felix asked the Union why they ran a paper to campaign against a decision that they could not change, a spokesperson responded: “In recent weeks it became apparent that the decision to close Weeks Hall had been made with no possibility for a reversal of this decision.

“Union Council had the option of whether to campaign or not on this decision, we reject the notion that campaigning against the closure would have been “pointless”. Campaigning is not always about delivering change, but sparking debate, discussion and raising awareness of an issue.”

What does College say about this?

Debra Humphris, Vice Provost (Education) sits on the Provost’s board, the body that has the power to shut the halls.

When Felix spoke to Humphris, she was unable to comment on the specifics regarding when the hall will close, or what the proposed changes to the internal structure of the building may be.

Humphris told us that College is in a process of renovating the whole Imperial estate, including the new campus based at Imperial West. College have plans that will come into effect over the next ten to twenty years, but are still assessing what should be rebuilt or what should be refurbished.

Said Humphris: “We need to evolve our portfolio, and change is necessary to do this. However, there are a lot of tough decisions to make.”

She referred back to the Student Residential Experience Review, ran back in 2013 that looked to gauge the opinion of student halls.

“We want to increase transparency. One example is the the rent proposals that were agreed on with students at Union Council, which we’ll now be implementing.

We know we need to average rent out at Woodward to £120 for example, and we are now making sure the figures work for the various room types to ensure this remains the case.

“I don’t know of another university that is as transparent with their consultations with students over their plans, in the way we have worked with students on rental arrangements but there are some decisions where we can’t consult broadly in the way we’d like.”

Debra explained how many London university student halls are moving further afield as accommodation within the city is increasing in price. “The London student housing issue is a cause for concern. We should be working with other universities to lobby Boris Johnson over this.

Some students are now expected to live around thirty to forty minutes from their campus, so it is not easy. Accommodation in London is a struggle; it’s a struggle for students and for staff too.”

She also explained that decisions around Evelyn Gardens are dependent on its owner, the Wellcome Trust. It will close after this academic year. “It’s down to the Wellcome Trust [who own the halls] on what they want to do with them, and currently we don’t know what they want to do with the buildings.”

Humphris said that in the event excess accommodation was retained there could be wider student use: “We know there are more students who would want to live with us if we could give them the chance.”

Debra also said there were no definite plans for Garden Halls yet, although stressed that there were areas of the hall that weren’t even safe to live in. “It needs to be considered alongside the whole North side of Princes Garden, as part of College masterplanning. And the masterplanning is driven by the fact that we are desperate for more academic space.”

She concluded: “We need to look at the entire estate as we grow and evolve, and as part of that we need to make difficult decisions.”