The LUCU Committee are supportive of plans for increasing on-campus student accommodation ready for academic year 27-28, comprising 5 new blocks and 552 beds. There have been serious shortages of student housing recently, forcing some students to commute from Leicester and Nottingham – significantly impacting their enjoyment of being here. We also know that on-campus accommodation is a popular part of the Loughborough Experience for students, and has been a crucial income stream helping to keep our financial outlook more stable than those Universities that cashed theirs in. This sort of well-targeted investment contrasts with the sort of “vanity project” spending that other union branches blame for the dire situations being faced by their members.
The new accommodation blocks will be built on many areas currently used for parking – especially car park 5, between our union offices and the walled garden. While some extra parking will be provided close to Towers we will still be losing 120 spaces in an area of campus where colleagues already struggle, causing significant stress and lost time. The new spaces are also classified as “temporary”, albeit without a known expiration date, meaning that we will likely lose them at some point when longer-term plans are made for the area.
Management’s argument is always that there is sufficient parking on campus, and that the multi-storey and Holywell Park always have spaces. While this is true, using these car parks when coming to Central and East parks will add significant travel time to cross campus, and necessitate use of very unpredictable bus services. We do not think this is realistic or acceptable.
We have been very clear that while the new halls are welcome staff should not bear such a significant cost to make them possible. The University must also invest in sufficient parking for East and Central park.
The images below show an artist’s impression of the project, and the significant changes to campus roads which will begin in January, for the duration of the build, for your information.
