UCL’s crumbling student halls generated a record £13m surplus despite receiving 223 reports of mould last year, Freedom of Information (FOI) figures show.
On average, almost 800 maintenance tickets were filed by the residents of each UCL hall in 2023/24, whilst the time taken to fix them has more than doubled to nearly two weeks.
It comes as UCL admitted to “historically inadequate” investment in the upkeep of its ageing estates. A Union source said UCL’s own analysis suggests it would cost £225 million just to bring its properties up to its own standards.
Ben Scanlan, Accommodation Officer and president-elect of the Students’ Union, said: “Once again, we are seeing UCL fail to invest in adequate facilities for its students.
“This is a symptom of a larger systemic problem — UCL treats its students like cash cows for its obscene salaries, bloated bureaucracy, and white elephant vanity projects.”
Halls of shame
Hall residents filed 94% more maintenance tickets in 2024 than five years ago, averaging 782 reports per accommodation.
The infamous Ramsay Hall, formerly home to Coldplay and Chris Nolan, topped the charts for the most maintenance tickets filed, reaching 3,715 reports — more than 15 for every resident.
Meanwhile, the block of five halls at 109 Camden Road — Ifor Evans, Max Rayne, Denys Holland, and Ann Stephenson — filed a combined 3,619 tickets in 2023/24. In March, 70 of its residents filed a group claim to UCL demanding financial compensation for “normalised” maintenance faults.
Money money money!
In 2024, UCL Accommodation generated almost £75m in revenue and spent just over £60m in total operating costs.
This means halls contributed some £13m to the University’s coffers in 2024, making it the most profitable year since 2018, when the surplus was £17m.
The University has previously admitted in a leaked memo that it doesn’t spend enough money on maintenance and upkeep.
Just £7m of the £48m it reported in operating costs in 2022 was spent on repairs, FOI data shows.
A UCL spokesperson said surplus income from halls are spent on “student education, support and experience” as well as on teaching and research.
Mould epidemic
Figures also reveal a worrying spike in reports of mould, which has more than doubled since last year to 223 cases.
Astor College, deemed by UCL as a “Band 1” accommodation worthy of £297.99 a week for a regular single room, accounted for 86 of those cases from 2024, representing a quarter of all mould cases since 2019.
Astor also ranked third on the list of halls with the most maintenance reports, with residents filing some 2,300 reports last year, having only been renovated in 2019 and was twice named best student accommodation at industry awards.
Elsewhere, Band 3 accommodation Goldsmid House in Victoria reported 56 incidents of mould in 2024, despite reporting no more than four cases a year between 2020 and 2023. A single room costs £285.67 a week.
Test of patience
Unsurprisingly, the average wait time for UCL to address a maintenance fault has more than doubled compared to five years ago as a result of a growing backlog of repairs.
The worst offenders were Campbell West and Astor College, reporting in 2024 an average wait time of 27 and 26 days respectively, followed by Goldsmid House at 21 days.
A UCL spokesperson said: “We have significantly increased the repair and maintenance budget for our residential buildings in recent years and are planning on substantial investment into our Accommodation Halls to improve overall asset and service quality in the near future as part of the UCL Estates 2050 Vision.”
“We prioritise maintenance issues reported to us based on the level of urgency. Any issues should be flagged with the relevant halls of residence team in the first instance.”
This article appeared in CG92
