Freshers housed in newly refurbished Oriel accommodation have had problems with their water supply and sporadic flooding due to ongoing construction work,
A history undergraduate commented, “there was a burst water pipe yesterday as a result of construction work, cutting off all water in the Rhodes building for several hours. This followed several days when the water had been randomly switched off intermittently and one day when there was only cold water.”
Speaking on Wednesday 5th November, he said, “Yesterday things got especially bad. Basically for some unknown reason all the taps came back on in a bathroom, causing it to flood and water poured down on the floor below through the light fittings, which was a major health and safety hazard. As it’s such an old and creaky building it really exposed its structural weaknesses. The water was three or four inches thick”
Another first-year commenting on f looding problems last week, said, “My room wasn’t that bad but there was definitely an excess of water. There had been no hot water all day so someone had turned a tap on and not turned it off again so when the water came back on their room flooded and so my room flooded. We went from no water to too much water pretty quickly! Luckily I escaped anything major though.”
Matt Hull, a first year at Oriel said, “Lately the water supply has been disconnected on a periodic basis, owing to works being done on the third quad. While it was disconnected, someone tried turning on the tap, but forgot to turn it back off before the supply came back on… Cue flooded bathroom etc.”
The Grade II listed building is part of St Mary’s Quad in Oriel College and faces onto High Street opposite St Mary’s Church. The construction work started in June 2013 and was due to finish in September of this year. While the bedrooms have all been finished, work is ongoing on seminar rooms and a new cardio gym on the ground floor.
Oriel’s third quad is currently still a building site, while builders put down new stonework and grass, a project that includes the levelling out of the lawn where croquet is played in Trinity term. As a second year commented, “The sacrifice of a few freshers rooms is necessary so that our new croquet lawn can be pitch-perfect.”
The project is intended to conserve the Rhodes building for the Twenty First Century, providing more and better undergraduate rooms as well as wheelchair access to all three quads on the college’s main site. The construction work caused problems last year when a crane was p l a c e d and removed in the quad resu l t i ng in noise disruption for stud e n t s living in the surrounding acc o m modation
When contacted by Cherwell, both the JCR president and Oriel College declined t o comment.
