Hello!
This article is devoted to the life in Liberty Bridge halls of residence. I aimed to share my experience with the benefits and negatives of living in this complex. Hope this text provides help to those of you who are amid decisions regarding the place of stay.
First things first,
Liberty Bridge is a private accommodation which has a tight relationship with the University of South Wales (later regarded as “USW”). That means they share an agreement and accept students who will study at the Atrium campus.
The complex itself is situated right in front of the university thus making the location rather lucrative for students who just do not feel like commuting or commit prominent travels to school.
The outside
Liberty Bridge is a tall 21-floor block building placed next to the NPC parking lot which faces the university and shares the other abstract border with the railway tracks. As this might hint students hear trains going back and forth if they are allocated in the left part of the building which offers the view onto office buildings and Cardiff bay in general. I remember when I just moved in and was super excited to see what my view will be like. To my surprise I was looking at the window covered office buildings and as I thought it can’t get any worse, I looked down and saw the train tracks right below.
The first night was awful, to be honest. I couldn’t get used to the sound of creaking and roaring engines of the passing trains so despite having earplugs I barely slept few hours. Nonetheless, after a month I didn’t mind the passing trains anymore. From my point of view, you get accustomed to it once you figure out that the situation won’t get any better.
Another negative in the bucket would be the night/early morning maintenance which decided to just repair the tracks with the loudest machinery. The sounds of slamming and hitting metal, the echo and shaking walls are something unforgettable. I never understood as to why they have to produce such noise in the quiet hours and wake up most of the students who live in Liberty or Lumis. Sadly, you can’t do much about it as the maintenance was already approved by the council so nothing a complaint would fix.
Unfortunately, there is a Smart Bridge in front of Liberty Bridge, which leads to Lumis accommodation and crosses the railway, where some students group and smoke weed. This unpleasant smell gets carried along with them as they enter the foyer of the accommodation which is truly annoying for those who don’t smoke or just despise the smell in general.
The inside
As mentioned above, the building has 21 floors, 5 of which are just sheltered parking lot, therefore if you do not live on 5th – 9th floor, the way up gets a bit demanding.
Using the lifts is the option for most of the tenants. Nevertheless, people often have to queue up as the lifts cannot carry more than 12 people. Throwing one more log into the fire, sometimes the lifts just doesn’t work or one of them in some cases hence the tenants are either sentenced to wait in the long queue for their journey up or give up and make their way up by the stairs instead, which was my case since I “only” lived on the 9th floor.
Notwithstanding, the indoors overall are clean and taken care of and keep up with the modern standards of living.
The reception with staff is ready to help you 24/7. I have a solely positive experience with them since I often was either shipping or receiving big bulky packages from my parents (being an international student) and they always tried to help me out. This leads me to the benefit of having a reception of this kind, you don’t have to be present when your package arrives, the staff just receives it for you and sends you an email as a notification.
If I remember it well every Wednesday they would have a basket full of fruit down in the common room (as well on the 5th floor) from which you could take anything for free. 😊
The staff sometimes organise a game evening or competitions in there as well so you get the chance to win something or engage with your neighbours. You can even print thigs there for free (if there’s ink) or play board games or PlayStation. There also is a laundry located on the 5th floor which has both washing machines and dryers. Everything is simple, you purchase a laundry credit card and top it up with money through PayPal or via internet banking and you are ready to go.
Coming your way up to your room you will pass two coloured buckets as soon as you leave the lift. These buckets or bins are full of trash bags for free. The accommodation made it stupid proof by sticking up what each colour should be used for. Red was for general waste and every trash bin in your room designed for general waste was red as well. Green was for mixed recycled, which baffled me as I was used to having paper, plastic, tetra packs or even metals separate. UK halls are strange in this but I will give them that since there would have to be more containers for trash outside and annoyingly some tenants don’t even know how to properly recycle.
Reaching your apartment
Finally, you have opened your flat door using a tiny white card. First thing you will see is a narrow corridor and 5 doors with a,b,c,d,e on them. The narrow corridor leads you to the shared kitchen and what we called a chilling room.
There were two fridges, one oven, microwave, hoover, ironing board and loads of storage cupboards. I recommend you do the same as I did when I moved in, buy stickers in Wilko or Poundland and write your name on it and just stick it on your chosen cupboards. I admit that my flatmates were at first confused why I did that but then they did the same and nobody had a temptation to look inside or steal any food from your storage. This, of course, depends on your flatmates and their behaviour.
The kitchen was clean and modern looking. As with anything you can look at some photos that I have attached down below to help you imagine thing better. One negative thing would be the windows with safety latch. I know it is reasonable to install them in any room because students may have low moments and god knows what could happen, but I found unpleasant that if I was cooking I couldn’t properly get the fresh air in.
Opening your room with the same white card you have just entered your temporary student kingdom.
In a nutshell, I loved my en-suite room. It had modern furniture (bed, shelves, wardrobe, desk), double bed, bathroom, large desk by the window with a chair and huge notice board hung on the wall above it. The mattress was comfortable but many people suggested to buy a mattress topper in case they wanted that soft touch to it.
I cleaned my room weekly, starting with hoovering, dusting and later on bathroom cleaning.
I know some may struggle with cleaning up because they are not used to it but believe me you do not want mould anywhere.
I had mould only on the bathroom ceiling and inside of tile seams which I couldn’t get rid of.
The desk and wardrobe were big enough for me although I couldn’t fit winter and summer clothes together that’s what the storage space underneath the bed is for.
I do not have any complaints apart from the dysfunctional heating. Which was automatically switching off during the winter and made me sleep in sweaters, but I suppose that was an individual problem.
Fire alarms and sound policy
Every week there was a short fire alarm at 3 pm this was just as a test but then I experienced longer ones when confused or alarmed tenants were going down the stairs only to be told that nothing is happening that someone has just accidentally triggered it and not even by a local staff member.
Sometimes I and my flatmates waited outside in the chilly night air because nobody told us what is happening or if it’s safe to get back in.
Lastly, if you are like me and need to sleep before noon there is a sound policy from 11 pm there should not be loud music or anything too noisy to be heard. However, some people just throw parties regardless. In that case, you can reach out to the staff or security and they will deal with it.
Overall, I was satisfied with the accommodation and would recommend it to anyone who wants to be comfortably close to uni.
Hope this article offers a review and aid of some sorts. 😊 If you have any specific question do not hesitate to share it in comments and I’ll do my best to answer it.
