Halls follow Uni's footsteps in annoying students!

Construction at Mill Point, Manchester’s newest Halls of Residence, is finally nearing completion – two and a half months from the date students started moving in.

The re-layering of a part of the floor is the only work-in-progress after the opening of the student common room on the 6th of Dec. This, however, offers little consolation to the suffering students who have endured problems ever since the arrival date.

The move-in date itself was delayed by a week and students were informed of this while they queued up at reception, with their belongings, to acquire their room keys. The laundry room was delayed by two weeks implying the residents had to visit city centre laundrettes with high charges to get their washing done.

Mill Point did offer alternative accommodation to arriving students and also offered a week’s free washing as a consolation.

On the altered arrival day itself one of the lifts broke down and students were made to carry their stuff up eight flights of stairs. Upon arrival into their flats, a number of kettles and TV remote controls were missing and that took four weeks to sort out after numerous complaints.

“Despite the best efforts of Domain to ensure timely completion, we were let down badly by our contractor, David McLean, who unfortunately over-ran with the project,” said a spokesman for Mill Point.

Manchester City Council was blamed for the late arrival of Ethernet at Mill Point.

“It should have been available from the day students moved in but delays were experienced in acquiring approval from the Council with regards to digging up the public highway for the physical connection.”

A replacement fire blanket was requested by a flat because of an accident and after daily reminders it was not delivered four weeks into the initial request. After being questioned about it by the reporter, the flat had the blanket delivered the following day.

“Replacement fire blankets are always kept on-site in order that we can replace them immediately where necessary,” advised the same spokesman.

Lack of organisation? Lack of communication? Or just lack of fire blankets? On the whole, Mill Point has been a major disappointment in the students’ eyes.
© Faras Ghani 2005