Firetrap hall students share moving issues

Students that were evacutaed from halls in West London due to fire risks have revealed problems that arose during their move but have also praised the College for the speed of their response.

An anonymous student that spoke to Felix, said that they felt that while Chapter was an upgrade in terms of room quality, the evacuation should never have become necessary.

Responding to claims that there were signs of deficient fire safety measures that the College did not take into consideration when renting the rooms, the student said that “I would like to think they were looking out for us more than that”.

Another student that also agreed to speak to Felix, on the condition of annonymity said that the move itself had been chaotic with a number of students being forced to sleep without sheets, duvets or pillows for two days as the removals company hired by College failed to deliver boxes to the correct block of the building.

Despite a number of measures in place to prevent boxes being misplaced this student told Felix that when they found their box was not in the flat they had been assigned they were told by the company that the boxes had been placed in a flat the floor below. When the student went to investigate there were not boxes. In fact the flat was not even being occupied by Imperial College students. It was only after appealing to the halls-wide groupchat that the boxes were identified in a studio.

Students have expressed happiness, however, at the increased quality of room that they had recieved. Rooms in the halls they previously occupied costed £135 a week but the Chapter flats given to students cost between £209 and £279 a week at no additional cost to the student themselves. In addition to this students have been told that they will recieve compensation in the form of a TFL travelcard for the inconveniance of having to evacuate.