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Location: Greencoat House managed by Unite Student Accommodation, Kingston Upon Thames
Stay period: 2012/13
I have lived in Greencoat House for the 2012/13 academic year. However, it is absolutely the worst student accommodation that I have ever lived before.
Greencoat House, which is situated in Kingston Upon Thames, is managed by Unite Student Accommodation. The photos and all the booking procedures listed in the Unite website are detailed and looks to be a reliable student accommodation, considering the scale it covered in the whole UK.
However, the actual management onsite is absolutely not satisfactory once I have moved in. I rented a single student studio in Greencoat House. I have to say all of room facilities are in satisfactory condition, with no broken pieces. However, it is all about the management which messed up all my experience in staying in Greencoat House.
Firstly, the fire alarm rang on almost THREE to FOUR times per week. I am not sure whether it is a fire alarm or someone deliberately set on the fire alarm just for fun, the fire alarm just ranged TOO frequently. Sometimes during daytime, sometimes during midnight, without any notice. It is not acceptable to trouble a paid customer for such a frequent amount of disturbance.
Secondly, there is at least ONE maintenance access to your room every SINGLE week, considering I am staying in that building for a year. The number of times to access the student room is too frequent and not acceptable. Also, there will surely have other workers (i.e. strangers) outside your room door every week. This cause unreliable and unsafe feeling to my room safety, considering they also have the right to access the room.
Thirdly, some of the public facilities situated inside the building is also not acceptable. For example, there is no space for dropping garbage inside the building and you have to carry your own stinky garbage walking right front of the crowded Kingston rail station and turn to the building backspace (i.e. car park) to drop your garbage.
In conclusion, all of the points that I have mentioned above did not exist in other student accommodation that I have lived in. For example, I have lived in Nido Spitalfields in the year which the building is also newly opened. They DO NOT have all of problems mentioned above. They have the private garbage space every floor, and there is only one to two times in ONE YEAR the fire alarm has rang or the room required maintenance. The Greeencoat Staff argued that it is a new building thus it is not doubt that there will be some issues. In fact, I have to say I don't care what problem you have because I am a paid customer to stay that building and thus I am expected the standard FULFILLS the price. If the building is not ready, do not open it.
A Kingston University Student
Summary: Awful
I am very sorry to hear that you felt unsatisfied with your experience of living at Greencoat House whilst Unite were the managers of the building.
In regards to the fire alarm issue safety protocol dictates that we activate one fire alarm call point a week, in order to check that in the event of a fire the system we have in place will allow for the safe evacuation of the entire building. However, I do understand that you experienced additional fire alarms during the week.
We want our fire alarms to pick up any notice of the possible beginnings of a fire. However, obviously this means that students actions in their rooms can cause the triggering of the alarm when there is not in fact a fire. We have found by simply talking to students when they set off the alarms we can reduce the likelihood of this happening again, as moving forward they make sure they do not repeat these actions. This has meant that the triggering of the fire alarm is a more rare occurrence.
We also have wardens on-site 24/7 to make sure that if the fire alarm is wrongly triggered this can be quickly investigated and the alarm silenced.
We like to have maintenance on-site as often as possible in order to make sure any issues that arise can be quickly solved. However, we only ever enter a student’s room with their permission or after giving them at least 48 hours’ notice.
Lastly, I am sorry that you found the location of the building’s waste disposal inconvenient. Our central location means it is difficult to find a spot that would enable you to walk to the bin store without being out in the public. We have tried to limit any inconvenience caused by making sure accessing our bins involves only a minute walk to our private car park.
Again I am very sad to hear that you are unsatisfied with your experience of living at Greencoat House. As you mentioned your main problem was with the management company we had at the time, Unite. Since you were living in the building we have changed management companies and AMRO Vantage now run the building. This change in management and staff has brought in a positive change for Greencoat House, helping to make sure every resident thoroughly enjoys their stay at Greencoat House.