Renovated Evelyn Gardens halls will cost up to £225 per week
Rooms will be for returning undergraduates only
Three halls in Evelyn Gardens, Holbein, Southwell and Willis Jackson, which college closed at the end of last year, will reopen this September to second and third year undergraduates only.
Standard singles will range from £182 to £200 per week, in comparison to Beit’s £192. Ensuite singles range from £190 to £225 compared with the £216 for the same in Beit.
The accommodation will also operate on a 51 week contract, whilst all other halls offer first years only 38 weeks’ housing.
There will be no wardening facilities – a feature college has wanted to get rid of for a while, as the wardens and subwardens pay no rent, although arguably provide important welfare services. Hall seniors pay full rent, but their existence reduces the number of rooms available for freshers.
The new halls will boast a 24 hour reception and “concierge service”. The accommodation website also mentions onsite “Resident Assistants”, the nature of which is unclear.
The new halls will boast a 24 hour reception and “concierge service”
In terms of access, there will be two “accessible” rooms, but the buildings still have no lifts.
In a dramatic U-turn on housing policy, at the end of last summer Imperial announced that Fisher hall would be reopened for the year as the college had let in too many undergraduates to fulfil its promise of providing accommodation to every first year.
Imperial offered up rooms in Fisher to freshers, and indeed any student that applied, for £132 per week. The halls are not in good shape.
Hall seniors were initially poached by the accommodation department from their preferred halls without their consent to join the wardening team in Fisher, before being returned after protest.
This will be the first time halls solely for the returning non-fresher undergraduates will be available.
The Imperial accommodation website says the new halls will offer a “sense of familiarity but with more independence than the first year experience”.
Applications for the new halls are expected to open later this month.
