Do letting agencies get away with murder?
The rise of the video game
page 11
Best household gadgets page 31
page 29
Issue 252
Issue 259
Monday 18th February 2013 www.epigram.org.uk 25 years of Epigram Bristol University’s Independent Student Newspaper Georgina Winney
Hiatt Baker residents demand fee reduction to compensate for work
Controversy as sports head secretly lobbies ‘elite’ teams Sports clubs have reacted angrily after the university’s Director of Sport, Exercise and Health (SEH), Simon Hinks, circulated an email requesting captains of Bristol’s elite sports clubs to vote down an attempt to make sports more accessible. The motion at the students’ union’s Annual Members’ Meeting (AMM) aimed at reintroducing the pay as you go option for sports facilities at all times passed with 88% voting in favour. The pay as you go option was scrapped at the beginning of the year but reintroduced following a petition that attracted over 1500 signatures. continued on page 3
What can you buy for the price of a pint? Travel, e2
‘Meat-Free Mondays’ motion passed at AMM Marek Allen
Students are unhappy with noise levels and the closure of facilities. Adam Bushnell News Reporter Student Housing Special A motion was passed at this year’s students’ union AMM (Annual Members’ Meeting) to compensate the residents of Hiatt Baker Hall for the misery caused to them by ongoing construction work. The motion demanded a reduction in fees and improvement of living conditions for the hall’s students.
A large contingency of Hiatt Baker residents attended the AMM – in which the motion to compensate them was voted first in the priority ballot – only to leave as soon as it was passed with 85% voting in favour. Construction work for a new transport hub for all Stoke Bishop residents and the creation of an additional 339 bedrooms at Hiatt Baker Hall is well underway and is due for completion for the 2014 intake. But current Hiatt Baker residents are unhappy with their accommodation. In a letter of complaint to the university, Claudia
Summers, who proposed the motion, expressed her dissatisfaction. She described how the building works are ‘literally surrounding ABC blocks with a sea of mud, fences, metal barriers and diggers.’ ‘As you can imagine, this is not only aesthetically displeasing, it is also extremely claustrophobic and is not a place where anyone would want to live.’ She also said that advertised facilities such as the library, hairdressers, common room and bike storage have been closed and access to the hall has been restricted. continued on page 3
A motion to ban the sale of meat on campus on Mondays was narrowly passed at the students snion’s AMM (Annual Members’ Meeting). Many were disappointed that the motion was carried, with only 50% of students present voting in favour. The motion was designed to reduce the university’s environmental impact, with the proposer arguing that the world’s cattle consume enough food to sustain 9 billion people. But a student who had grown up in a family of sheep farmers argued against the proposal, claiming that we should instead concentrate on sourcing fresh, local meat. See page 3 for a summary of motions.
Ethical fashion fur better or worse? Style, e2