Controversy at St Anne’s college has ended after administrators agreed to turn the college’s heaters back on.
At the start of term the college had adopted a policy of turning the heating off in Trinity term, on the grounds that it would be uneccesary in the summer term. However, students criticised the decision not to turn it back on when the weather took a turn for the worse.
One, who asked that her anonymity be preserved, said she wished “to complain in the strongest and most abusive terms possible”.
“I have to wonder just what i pay battels for – battels that i believe are substantially higher than the average – if i cannot control the heating in my own room. Last night I went to bed fully dressed and still could not get to sleep, I was so cold.”
“I have to wonder whether the college authorities care about their students.”
Many students complained that they had not been warned or informed of the college’s decision, and that the lodge was refusing to give out electric heaters, as it had done in earlier terms.
One college resident circulated a petition demanding that the college reverse its decision, which received several dozen signatures. Finally, on Wednesday, the college turned the heating back on.
Bursar Martin Jackson refused to comment on his reasons either for the initial decision to shut off the heating or for the subsequent climbdown.
Students, however, welcomed the move. One, who had been involved in the petitioning campaign and aksed to remain strictly anonymous, said “I am overjoyed. My room was freezing; I was having difficulty sleeping and I couldn’t spend extended amounts of time in it. I feel that college had a somewhat radical reaction to environmental and economic concerns, which was in danger of compromising the welfare of its students. I am pleased that they responded reasonably once they had been made aware of the situation.”
St Anne’s has a recent history of heating woes, with Jackson last year apologising after two successive terms in which boilers broke down in various accomodation blocks.
