Cheese Grater Issue 51 - Winter 2015

Page 1

Issue 51 – Winter 2015

cheesegratermagazine.org

Proud to be affiliated to UCLU

They want how much? Bah, humbug!

The Ghost of Rent Strikes Past • • •

Management Finally Coughs Up the Cash UCL Facing Accommodation Crisis in Coming Years Private Halls Providers Look to Profit

Ifor Ramsay It’s been a rough term for the oncemighty UCL Residences. The accommodation racketeers not only face the prospect of repaying a total of £400,000 to residents of Hawkridge House and Campbell House West after lengthy and ultimately successful rent strikes, but also the potentially ruinous proposition of residents from all of its halls going on strike – something campaign group UCL Cut the Rent is currently agitating for. Despite a string of humiliating and very

public defeats inflicted by the vocal protestors, however, insider reports suggest management are still doing their best to make students’ lives – and their own – as difficult as possible. Having already threatened rent strikers by claiming they would not be able to graduate whilst still in arrears (see last CG), UCL bosses sent in their biggest hitter, Vice Provost for Operations Rex Knight, to lead the delegation at arbitration panels in October and November. Knight, known to most students as Prov-

ost Michael Arthur’s pet pantomime villain, is by all accounts taking the defeat about as well and maturely as he would be expected to. Insiders in attendance at the second of the two hearings – which ruled that Hawkridge residents were entitled to a rebate of £1,200 each – report a nonplussed Knight, probably well aware of the inevitability of another defeat, refusing to allow student representatives to speak at length. Continued on Page 3


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.