On the 3rd November, NUS Wales had our 2nd annual Housing Training Day at Cardiff University Students' Union. It was a positive and informative event, where more than half of the housing/welfare representative officers from all Welsh Universities attended and were able to share best practice in Welsh Student Housing.
During the day:
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Anne Rowland from Landlord Accreditation Wales and Kieran McCann - Cardiff Council's Student Housing Project Officer came and gave an informative presentation on the Private Sector Housing Legislation and answered questions on the legalities involved in Welsh Student Housing.
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Pete Mercer - NUS UK VP-Welfare came to talk about background and present landscape of Student Housing Welfare in the UK
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Chris Davies- Welfare and Communications Officer at Cardiff Students Union spoke about welfare campaign best practice that has been developed at Cardiff SU and Danielle Buckley - VP Education & Welfare at Bangor SU explained how they developed their housing campaign over their 1st year.
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Charlotte Britton - Welfare Officer at Swansea Students Union came and spoke about the initiatives that she had implemented in Swansea encouraging and reminding students of the importance to interact within and become active members of their community.
The centre point of the day was the launch of the NUSW Housing Survey - Charlotte Britton and Raechel Mattey - Deputy President NUS Wales introduced the survey and their hopes for cultivating the first ever time there was qualitative data on the state of the housing issues affecting students in Wales.
The day concluded with the all the delegates discussing the current issues in Welsh Student Housing and Accommodation covering topics like Housing shortages and whether higher rents equal higher standards?