Wheatley Camp-arse (Accommodation in general)

Name: RiotGrrly

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Product:	Accommodation in general
Date:	10/10/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bar, Community

Disadvantages: Location

Coming to Oxford Brookes Uni was a bit of a rush job and I didn't have a choice accommodation. Having a car limited my choices even further, so I ended up at Wheatley. Situated about five miles south east of Oxford, Wheatley Campus has both halls of resisence, and the Business School.

The first thing you'll see on the approach is The Tower Block which earned the Campus the nickname of the 'projects' or the 'ghetto'. Apparently it sways in the wind but I'm not living there so I couldn't verify that. I have been in though, and it reminds me of a Spanish Hotel. A cheap one. In D building - my home! - in our particular section (J9 to J16) we had no hot water or heating for the first three days. The rooms are a lovely salmon pink, with some rather fetching sick stains on the carpet. Not mine, I hasten to add. Between the eight of us, there are three toilets and two showers, and a small kitchen unit. Communal areas are cleaned three times a week, apparently but I'm usually in bed at that time - heh heh - so I've never seen them.

The Campus is catered and houses about 341 people, so you do the math. No, the food is not haute cuisine but it's edible. I'm no chef, so it suits me. Rent is currently about £79 a week. I have been told that the vast majority of the money from rent goes to the university, rather than Campus maintenance. Speaking of which... I have been here three weeks and there is still only one washing machine and dryer between all 341 of us! We are waiting for a new, proper laundrette to open on Campus but that keeps being postopned. The Campus was promised £2 million last year but this was withdrawn two weeks later. Madness!

There is a bus, the 77, that runs every half an hour to Brookes Uni. From there, you can catch various buses into the city centre. Word of advice: if you have a 9am lecture, get the 8am bus, the traffic is horrendous! On fridays and saturdays, there are buses tha
t run at 1.30am and 2am. The daytime buses are free but the eary morning buses are not. They are still cheaper than a taxi though: be warned, taxi drivers will rip you off. Negotiate. Or get hold of Malcolm. The Students Union operates a women's safety bus which doesn't go to Wheatley. Durr. If you can't be bothered with Oxford (and, as a punk/metal/stoner fan, I can't) Wheatley has it's own bar and hosts the Wheatley Bop every thursday. Yep, I thought so too. Louder music and some guy throwing hip hop moves on the flo'.

All this sounds pretty negative, doesn't it? I have been here three weeks and I'm fed up. Out here, however, there is a real sense of community. Or desperation, however you look at it. I'll update in a few months and at the end of my incarceration so then you'll all be better informed when choosing Uni's and where to sleep when you're there!

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