The city’s newest residents are this week settling into student life as the first to move into the University of Chester’s two new halls of residence.
The university has invested £22 million in an ambitious and comprehensive programme to update and upgrade its estate.
This has included buying the former Travelodge hotel, conveniently situated between the city centre and the university’s main campus on Parkgate Road, where it has also constructed a purpose-built residential block, creating a total of 360 additional rooms.
In addition, existing halls of residence at Chester and at the university’s Warrington campus have been refurbished, to bring them up to a similar standard.
Professor Tim Wheeler, the university’s vice-chancellor, said: “This summer has seen the most extensive schedule of improvements to the university’s properties in its history and despite punishing deadlines everything was ready for the first years this week.”
Added Katie Badman, Chester Students’ Union president: “The new accommodation is just what students want – close to everything that the campus and the city have to offer and with all mod cons.
“The feedback we are getting is fantastic. Our new students love where they live and have already become very attached to the city.
“As well as taking part in organised activities on campus during their first week, many students have been taking advantage of the great shopping which Chester has to offer and have been coming back armed with carrier bags!”
The former Travelodge on Delamere Street has been renamed Sumner Hall to acknowledge John Sumner, one of the university’s founders 174 years ago, who was a Bishop of Chester and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury.
The university has undertaken minimal internal alterations, which have retained 160 en-suite rooms and the ground floor restaurant area, but not the bar. Students are accommodated on a full-board basis and there are also vending machines on-site.
The accommodation is supervised in the same way as in on-campus buildings, with University representatives on-site.
Brent Williams, partner at Hill Dickinson LLP and shortly to be partner at Knights Solicitors LLP, which assisted the university in the legal aspects associated with the university’s purchase of the building, said: “I’m delighted to have formed part of the university’s team in the acquisition and in particular that we were able to complete the purchase just in time for the arrival of the students, having commenced work last December.
“I only wish student accommodation of this standard had been available when I was at university! “
Grosvenor House on the main campus provides 202 en-suite, self-catering studios across three blocks, which are situated between the sports pitches and the Seaborne Library.
