Yesterday afternoon signalled a significant step up in progress for the Bay Campus Development.  It was also the final University Council that Imogen (current Sports Officer) and I will sit on whilst in office.

University Council is the second highest decision making body of the University, all management boards and structures feed up to it and it is where final decision on strategic and academic issues are made.  Yesterday a decision had to be made regarding which company the Hendrefoelan Student Village Site would be sold to.  As I hope many of you are aware, HSV will be closing partially and then fully as the New Bay Campus Development is built and completed.  For a very long period of time, over two years, Charlotte your Welfare Officer has repeatedly asked to be involved in talks regarding to the closure of HSV.  We have asked because we are majorly concerned that the clousre, which is in two phases; the first phase being the houses in the village and potentially the pub and other services, followed by the woodside flats in the second phase, will have a huge impact on student experience.

 Yesterday during a presentation made at Council we were encouraged to hear that services such as the Wonky Sheep, Laundrette and Spar shop would remain open until 2018/19 -(when the final phase of building will begin and there will be no student residences left), however we still felt not enough consideration had been given to protect students being isolated, cut off and affected by essentially living on a building site.  Imagine how disruptive living, sleeping, revising and working will be living next to a demloition and then construction site!  Thus Imogen and I, your student representatives voted against the sale.  Unfortunately the rest of University Council voted unanimously in favour and the sale will go ahead once all legalities have been finalised.  

I feel at this juncture we as the student body need to take a very firm stance on ensuring that quality of life for those students who will live in Woodside in 2015 have as close a student experience to students living on the Singleton Campus and the new Bay Campus.  In the coming weeks we will be asking you for your support to make sure this is possible.

If you would like more information on the Bay Campus project, please either come and see myself or Imogen or pop us an email (president@swansea-union.co.uk or sportsofficer@swansea-union.co.uk).

The Bay Campus is set to be open in 2015 and will signal a significant change to Swansea University life as we know it.

Thank you for reading,

Tom.