Evelyn Gardens may open to non-freshers
It has been revealed that students in second year and beyond may be able to apply for halls that were due to be shut down this year
At Tuesday night’s union council meeting it came to light that the Evelyn Gardens may become a hall reserved for second years.
The union is currently in talks with college to allow students to take up 51 week contracts in the halls. The rather tired accomodation would most likely be renovated before this change was made. As the students would not be first years, the halls would be more akin to private accomodation, including a smaller hall wardening team.
This will come as a surprise to some, considering the fact that the college was not able to house all the freshers it let in this year.Last March, Imperial announced that Evelyn Gardens would be: “closed for a period while refurbishment takes place, or the property will be removed from Imperial’s accommodation portfolio”. Later that summer, this decision was reversed so freshers did move in to Evelyn Gardens in September.
Only 33 years remain on Imperial’s lease of Evelyn Gardens, which in terms of the college’s accomodation porfolio, is not long. Arguably, the university doesn’t want to house freshers in accomodation it doesn’t own. Despite this, Xenia, which the college rents, does currently house freshers. During proceedings one member of council commented: “We now know why they wanted to close the halls”.
Currently, halls are allocated to freshers and wannabe hall seniors in the summer, with the occasional second or third year being allowed to live in halls without taking up hall senior positions. Hall seniors pay the same rents as freshers.
