The changing lives of Liverpool Uni students

Walk anywhere around Liverpool city town centre and you are bound to be confronted by construction sites and scaffolding for student accommodation building projects. Whether it be a former prison, a former university building or a former car park, nowhere is safe from Liverpool’s massive appetite for student housing.

This massive influx of student accommodation is not without consequence. For one, it marks an increasing push towards a more town-centric lifestyle for university students; one that stands to completely change the experience of Liverpool University for its student population in coming years.

Damn you Vine Court, you have cursed us all!

It all started with Vine Court. Formerly a car park, now a massive on-campus luxury accommodation that houses up to 750 students. With rumours of Greenbank closing for renovations over 2014 and 2015, and the powers-that-be’s niggling desire to build build build, it may not be long until the further afield accommodation like Carnatic and Greenback are resigned to memories of better days.

With the students who are in halls closer to uni being less willing to venture further away from campus, having grown accustomed to the luxury of not having to get 699 every morning, it is increasingly likely that students heading into second year look more towards the likes of Kensington Fields and Edge Hill for houses rather than Smithdown.

Who wouldn’t want to live here?

This move campus-ward also comes with a more literal price tag than that of changing of student lifestyles. Crown Place, for instance, cost a whopping £45m to build and the new guild was also a multi-million job. These mass splashings of cash take on an interesting new spin when you consider the pay cuts that lecturers were recently subjected to. Makes you wonder how necessary they really were.

In some ways this more campus-centric approach to accommodation may appear to be a good thing as it keeps students away from some of the rougher areas of Liverpool – but where’s the fun in that?

However, it also means that the University of Liverpool students of the future will have a completely different experience of university than the ones before had.

No more Carnibar, no more Wyncote, no more Sefton park. Truly, it might not be long until Smithdown culture is a thing of the past.

Ultimately, it seems like the move towards more town-based university lifestyles is likely to restrict the experience Liverpool students have of university, which is a shame when you consider the wealth of experiences that Smithdown, Wavertree and Mossley Hill have to offer. However, all we can do is make the best of them while we still can.

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