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8th March 2016 Issue 323
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UEA set to cut funding to Graduate Students’ Association as union takes on postgrad role >> University’s intervention on future of postgraduate provision ends over a year of uncertainty Megan Baynes News reporter The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) is likely to lose its funding from the university, as its functions are taken over by the Union of UEA Students (UUEAS) and it finds itself without a functioning committee. There has been tension between the GSA and the union in recent years, and in February of last year the GSA announced it was withdrawing from discussions about holding a referendum regarding a possible merger of the two organisations. The GSA had previously said that, unless its demands were met, it would urge postgraduates to reject the proposed merger. In an email sent to postgraduate students on 3rd March, Brian Summers, the university’s Registrar and Secretary, announced that University Council would be asked to look at transferring funding from the GSA to UUEAS. Summers wrote: “The executive team of the university has decided to ask the university’s Council to consider winding up the GSA and transferring its grant to the students’ union, but that that funding should be ring-fenced to support postgraduate students in the way that it has done in the past, ie conferences, social events and so on. “We would also ask the union to suggest how the postgraduate community can best determine how that money should be spent
University loses millions of pounds on failed Generation Park project in city Jessica Frank-Keyes News editor UEA has invested £2.25m into a planned biomass power station on the outskirts of Norwich. The company behind the venture, Norwich Powerhouse LLP, last week filed for
Scholars Bar in the revamped Union House Photo: Jessica Frank-Keyes for Concrete in the future”. Summers called UUEAS the “dominant organisation”, and wrote that, “the GSA has always had a modest budget in comparison… which has largely been expended on supporting individual students attending conferences, facilitating social
events for postgraduates and making small purchases for the previous postgraduate bar”. UUEAS has an annual turnover of just over £10m, compared to the GSA’s £6,000. Over time there has been an increasing shift towards UUEAS as the primary
insolvency, with debts totaling £3m. The site was planned to be located in Thorpe Hamlet and was set to include new housing and an education centre. Norwich Powerhouse struggled to find investment for the £370m project. Energy Company Eon also invested £1.4m in the project, which was set to include a straw pellet burning plant. The plans faced protests when announced last year, with critics of the venture claiming that: “construction on contaminated land could pollute water sources for a nearby Britvic drinks factory, leading to job losses”. Local residents also voiced worries about reduced air quality. Generation Park’s developers said in a statement released last week that they “regret to announce that the company has faced difficulties securing investment for Generation Park Norwich”. They pinpointed the lack of interest in the venture on “current uncertainty over national support for green energy” and stated that this had made
Generation Park Norwich “less attractive to private investors”. The company’s board are currently working with an “insolvency practitioner to work out the best arrangement for creditors”. They insist that the project remains “an excellent vision for the city that would make Norwich an exemplar of green, renewable energy”. A spokesperson for UEA stated that: “the university is disappointed that the
£2.5
m
The amount of money that UEA invested in Generation Park
Generation Park Norwich project has been facing funding challenges”. The university “hopes that Norwich Powerhouse will reach an acceptable arrangement with creditors, and that ongoing discussions with potential investors are productive”. The university went on to state that “UEA’s financial investment ended more than two years ago after
provider of postgraduate support and representationon on campus. It now run Scholars Bar after the GSA was not equipped to deal with purchasing, staffing and the regulation associated with licensed premises. Following a refendum, in 2014 the union created the post of Postgraduate Education Officer, meaning that the representation role of the GSA became increasingly defunct. UUEAS now has a postgraduate assembly and facilitates a programme of postgraduate social activities. The decision to close the GSA follows ongoing uncertainty over the future of postgraduates with the union. Last year the GSA committee claimed that its views were not being listened to, and that no details about what would happen after a possible merger had yet been agreed. UUEAS has rejected these assertions. However, no referendum on a merger has taken place. The postgraduate assembly, which had to authorise a referendum, was not attended by enough students to hold a vote. With the GSA and UUEAS seemingly unable to come to a decision on the future of postgraduate representation, the university stepped in to impose a solution. Summers concluded: “the executive team is very clear that postgraduates at the university should enjoy appropriate support and good facilities. It is our view that this can now be best delivered through the union and this decision regarding the GSA is, pragmatically, the best way forward”. fostering the early stages of development”. UEA are one of Generation Park’s three founding partners and have confirmed that they remain “supportive” and are “keen to make our own fair contribution to creditors or to any refinancing plan”. Commenting on the issues SU Campaigns and Democracy Officer Chris Jarvis said “It’s incredibly important that UEA continues to be an innovator and pioneer on climate change, but the headline £3.25m loss on this project is a real kick in the teeth for students being told they have to pay ever higher rents to fund campus refurbishment. “Given this comes hot on the heels of losses incurred on the Biomass plant and the closure of UEA London, it’s absolutely essential that the University’s council- which is ultimately responsible for UEA’s financeslearns from these mistakes, opens up its decisions to greater scrutiny and is careful to make sensible investments that retain its climate credentials”.