By Adam Coe
Severe weather conditions caused disruption, uncertainty and snowballs on campus last week. The snowfall has been the heaviest in November for almost 30 years, and only the second snowiest December in Yorkshire for over 110 years. Paul Hudson, BBC Look North’s Climate Correspondant told Vision that last week’s conditions were “a truly exceptional spell.”
Almost every arm of student life on campus was affected in some way, with early closures and reduced access to the Library, the Student Services departments and college bars and catering services last week. Dr Margaret Ferguson, Director of LFA, reported that over 20% of classes were cancelled and attendance was significantly down.
“Most of our staff are part time and have to travel from a distance and so have not been able to get in,” she said.
Student life in the city was affected too, with most businesses operating on a situational basis. Senior officials of the City Council held a special “Severe Weather Control” meeting last Wednesday.
Scheduled appearances by Chase & Status at Tokyo and DJ Fresh at Fibbers were both cancelled. Nevertheless, the most popular establishments, although less busy, have managed to stay open. Sue Fong, a co-owner of the Willow told Vision that “quiet or busy, we will be open as it says on the menu box.” She seemed unrelenting as she stated, “it doesn’t matter what the weather’s like, how cold it is, the staff have been told they must turn up to work.”
There has been disruption to bus services, though a York Pullman spokesman was keen to state that “unlike other bus companies that withdrew their vehicles, we didn’t.” When questioned on whether he thought York Pullman had dealt with the weather better than their competitors he said, “that is up to the consumer to decide.” “There’s been a lot of hearsay on what other people did with their services and I can’t comment on that but we were able to run 95% of ours and saw patronage increase as a result on those days.”
Similarly, taxi services have been erratic, with one report of students having to physically push their taxi after getting stuck at the Wentworth roundabout. Students have also been stranded in town waiting hours to get back to campus. Harry Lister, A first-year PPE student at Derwent College, told Vision that “when we started driving, we were skidding on the first corner and had to reverse but continued to skid. We eventually skidded past the taxi office again, going backwards.” He also said that they had been given a 20 minute waiting time but eventually waited an hour and a half before the taxi actually came. Bus services were also disrupted.
East Midlands Rail and National Express Coaches were both quick to reassure students that assuming forecasts are accurate, students can expect no more than mild delays during the mass exodus of campus at the end of term.
National transport services in and out of York were cancelled last week during the worst of the weather and students were encouraged to check updates.
Second year PPE student Luke Sandford was stuck on a train from London to York for eight hours last Tuesday when the weather was at its most brutal. He said that after a standstill of three hours, a snow-plow was called in to ensure that they were not stuck overnight.