Hundreds of students in Victoria Halls left with no water for four days

Around 100 flats in Phase One of Victoria Halls were left without water for four days and they are yet to receive any formal apology.

The students were left waterless from the Tuesday until Friday and had to make do with showering and washing their hair with boiled bottled water that was only provided for them on the Wednesday evening.

A final-year who lives in one of the eight blocks affected said they just got the occasional trickle.

She said: “I had to shower at my friend’s house and stay in Derby as I’m borderline diabetic and need access to food and water regularly. They kept saying the water was on but they didn’t have to live with the trickles. I spent the whole of Wednesday with shampoo in my hair and we couldn’t even wash up or flush the toilets.

“Many of us are writing dissertations now so it’s been such a distraction and I feel so sorry for the international students who live here because they couldn’t even go home.”

Not all of us are this lucky

“All we want is compensation for this inconvenience as the fault couldn’t be helped, but there was no formal apology and the caretakers were rude so we just feel as though it hasn’t been a well-managed situation.”

A caretaker apparently apologised to one girl with a “soz” to which she complained and was told to come to the halls’ office for a face-to-face apology the next week.

Another third year said the dry spell was a joke: “We had no water to wash or cook with apart from a few bits here and there throughout the day. Some nights we would have no water for over five hours with no prior warning beforehand.

“The worst part for me was how insincere some of the apologies of the staff were, especially on the Facebook page.”

Jason Faulkner, Victoria Hall’s Manager said: “The students were never without water for a huge period of time and we were able to warn them when they would be.

“We were wholly apologetic the entire way through and did everything we could do to fix it whether it was in or out of work hours. It was a bad scenario but it couldn’t have been anticipated and was way beyond our control.”