Student vandals cost universities £600,000

THE Young Ones made undergraduate excess an art form, but it seems they have nothing on Scotland’s students.

Universities north of the Border have suffered damage worth more than £600,000 at the hands of students in the past five years.

And, much like celebrated fictional hellraisers Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike, Scottish students specialise in stained mattresses, broken headboards, flooding and fire damage.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) show there were at least 14,000 cases of damage recorded in university residential halls since 2006 – an average of seven a day.

Despite the extent of the destruction wreaked by drunken and high-spirited undergraduates, fines are rare and the highest recorded was just £200.

According to the figures from Scotland’s 21 universities, the bill for damage since November 2006 has hit at least £610,000, with Aberdeen emerging as having the most destructive students.

Aberdeen University recorded almost £144,000 of damage in more than 4,300 separate cases. Their “top five” incidents were “mattress damage (torn or stained)”, damage to walls, discoloration through smoking, rubbish left in rooms and missing or damaged fire equipment.

The university – the fifth oldest in the UK – recorded an average of four incidents of damage a week.

But despite the huge bill for cleaning and repairs, the university admitted: “Most of the damage is identified once the students have vacated the property and it is unlikely to lead to disciplinary action.”

Neighbouring Robert Gordon University recorded damage worth £114,000 in three years, meaning its annual average is higher than Aberdeen University. There were 2,772 separate incidents.

The university insisted it took a tough line with offenders, however, saying: “Students who have persisted in causing vandalism have been evicted from student residences.”

Despite its elite status as a member of the Russell Group, the University of Edinburgh managed an unenviable third in the destruction league, suffering damage worth £113,000 to its halls of residence. Fourth were students at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, where a new £100m campus opened in 2008.

The university has suffered damage worth £74,000 in halls in 196 incidents, including yet more stained mattresses, damaged kitchen worktops, fire extinguishers set off, ceiling tiles smashed, and damaged oven doors. Only one formal case of disciplinary action has been taken.

Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, said the figures represented a “tiny minority” of students and that much of the damage was “wear and tear”.