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Sussex Estates mistake radio studio for toilet door
Paul Millar
The Students’ Union has paid an undisclosed amount of money to hire a private contractor to fit locks into the Falmer House radio studio. The Badger has received email correspondence to show Sussex Estates and Facilities, the university’s newly outsourced estates and facilities management team, at first neglected the request before mistaking the studio door for a toilet. This means URF, the campus radio station which has been broadcasting since 1976, is unable to safely store equipment such as headphones or microphones. Nick Werren, URF’s Station Manager for two years, gave an extensive insight into the fruitless communication he has experienced with the new estates management team, run by private company Interserve. First, Werren discovered through the Students’ Union that Sussex Estates fitted a new lock on the wrong door, having not received a reply to the email he sent in May. “About a week later, I was told by the Union that Estates had arrived at the studio, and were working on the doors! I was ecstatic that after all this time, they’d finally listened to a student of the university, a university who they work for. “Another week passed and I went up to the studio to check out the progress Estates were making on fitting the locks. That’s when I found out the horrible, horrible truth. Estates has fitted one lock, on the wrong door. The new lock, if anything, made things more difficult!” Estates then mistook the radio studio for a toilet door just before term started, and with the situation still not rectified, Werren decided to go public with his frustration at the situation. Werren recalled: “After informing Estates that I wasn’t talking about the
security of toilet doors, I was actually talking the security of the university’s student radio station that has existed on the campus for nearly 40 years and contains thousands of pounds worth of equipment, they never replied. “And finally, last week, I finally resorted to organising an external contractor to sort out the security of the studio.” This has come at the burden of the Students’ Union budget, but it felt obliged to support the station. Michael Segalov, Communications Officer, said “it’s been a hugely frustrating process, which has led to a huge amount of hassle for our staff and students. Accross the campus, SEF are seemingly failing to deliver, and the Students’ Union will continue to monitor their management.” Third-year Physics student Werren, who has headed URF since his first year, added: “In the last year Estates haven’t been anything other than an obstacle. “Look around the campus, actually look; things are broken everywhere, half of the lights on the way up to the brand new Jubilee building are either flickering or broken entirely, the “moat” in the centre of Falmer House is either full of stagnant green water and a couple of crisp packets, or it’s empty. “Is this campus actually being managed by anyone? Did they really outsource Estates to a competent private company, or is the university management running with the idea that if they give an infinite number of monkeys the responsibility to manage a university campus, one of them will eventually fix the correct lock on the correct door.” Despite heavy protests from students and staff, the University pressed on with plans in January to outsource its facilities and security services to Interserve on the promise it would lead to the campus being “easier” and “smoother” to access for all students.
Sophie Jones In May, the same month Werren first sent an email to Estates demanding the radio studio be made secure and usable, the University of Sussex’s social media team posted a picture of Helen Boaden, the head of BBC radio who first experienced student radio by presenting on Sussex’s URF, and urged students to ‘choose’ the university on the quality of its radio station. However, the lack of investment in providing the new studio with the nec-
essary has raised question marks over whether the university has misled applicants. Meanwhile, it has also emerged that Sussex Estates has also refused to copy the single key which members use to access the studio, meaning the office cannot be used at the same time as the studio. With the key going missing last week and with no spare, presenters were unable to host their shows which
they had prepared for. After being contacted by The Badger, a senior staff director at the University of Sussex, said that it will be looking into the case as a matter of urgency. The university also told The Badger that it would offer assistance too, suggesting multiple keys coupld be copied to executive members before a security system is put in place to ensure the safety of a Mac and other expensive equipment.