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Indigo Cover Story, pages 8-11
Indigo Food, pages 5-7
No. 734
www.palatinate.org.uk
Palatinate Durham’s student newspaper since 1948
Tuesday 22nd November 2011 | FREE
Estate agents provoke housing panic again .
Despite official advice, freshers are beginning to sign housing contracts earlier than ever before
Chris Murphy Katie Pavid
Durham students have begun the search for a house for the following year earlier than ever before this term. Official advice from the DSU Livers’ Out Officer is to wait until after Christmas before signing a contract, but in practice this is becoming less and less frequent. Students going into their final year have not wasted any time getting their houses sorted, leaving first year students to worry about getting their own contracts signed and a group of housemates together just a matter of weeks into their time at Durham. Pem Tshering, the DSU Livers’ Out Officer believes that freshers have
“Our advice is that they wait until next term”
Pem Tshering, DSU Livers’ Out Officer begun to panic too early: “They have started a frenzied look for houses when they should be focusing on finding people that they’d definitely want to live with for an entire year, if not more! “Our advice is that they wait until next term, when they will be better placed to know who their friends are, and then go through the motions of acquiring a house for the next year”. Cole Sims, the Collingwood College Livers’ Out officer, commented: “The situation is made much worse by estate agents and landlords
putting up signs as early as the end of October. “Freshers haven’t been in Durham for a month, let alone picked their housemates”. It certainly seems that the boards around town and pressure from already-formed housemates are putting a lot of pressure on freshers. Some estate agents also offer incentives to students: for example, Q student is offering a £50 voucher per person for the café/bar Popolo if the contract is signed before December 15th. A third year Hatfield student commented: “What Q Student are doing is despicable and completely immoral within an educational establishment”. A Collingwood first year noted: “I don’t even want to think about houses yet. But it’s hard when you see people going round houses and you feel like you should be doing something yourself”. It seems that students in Durham sign contracts for houses particularly early in the academic year compared to some other universities in the country. Those living and studying in London often sign contracts much later, leaving it until the summer months to begin house hunting. A first year medic at Imperial College London told Palatinate that the process has not yet started: “Apparently we need to start deciding these things in about May”. A third year student at Nottingham University said: “Most people have signed a contract by February here, although there are always some stragglers that leave it until the summer! Because there’s a surplus of property in Nottingham you’ll never
Continued on page 4
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The DSU feels that freshers should wait until next term to sign for houses Photograph: Tamsin White
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