During his speech Mr Cable claims that some Universities are “at risk” from high levels of debt, and they would be left to go bankrupt under the new system. This may well alarm many University of York students, as it is commonly known that the University has borrowed extensively to fund the Heslington East project. York Council recently revealed that the University has had to “draw more heavily on capital borrowing than had been expected.”

Although the University are awaiting the upcoming Browne Report into University funding before commenting further they have moved to reassure students of the financial stability of the University. In an official statement from Jane Grenville, the Pro-vice-chancellor for students, the University admit they are now using up previous surplus to ‘buffer the cuts’ they also claim that the University has a ‘very diversified income stream’, gaining finance from research grants, innovations and commercial operations, and so are ‘not as badly affected as some other institutions.’

Under the proposed new system, the government will pay the cost of tuition fees directly to the universities, rather than granting loans to students to cover their own expenses. Graduates will then have to repay the money through a tax imposed once they start earning more than £15,000. Higher earners will be expected to pay more.

“We want to investigate an option which is clearly fairer and related to people’s ability to pay,” Cable told the BBC.

The plans were welcomed by NUS, with president Aaron Porter commenting that “he (Cable) is right to ask why, under the current unpopular and regressive top-up fee system, a care worker or teacher is expected to pay as much as a corporate lawyer or banker.”

However, he also called for further details into the workings of the new scheme to ensure that it is truly a reform and “not simply tuition fees by another name”.

“Students will not be conned by rebranding exercises or marketing drives”.

His sentiments were echoed by University and College Union general secretary, Sally Hunt, who said “If the government thinks it can get the public to swallow higher fees as some sort of graduate tax it is living in a dream world. We need a proper debate on how to fund our universities, not an exercise in re-branding.”

“We will judge the plans on what they actually do and whether or not students will be forced to pay more, not how the government markets them,” Hunt concluded.

The possibility of a graduate tax system will be included in Lord Browne’s review of student finance, which will be published this autumn.

The top boss, who is thought to command close to a six figure salary, topped Vision’s power list in July; a consequence of his control over key services such as cleaning, catering, security, timetabling and University bars. However, worryingly the University admits his vital role will be left vacant for some time, commenting, “There will be no direct replacement in the first instance.”

One puzzled student commented, “This isn’t great really, why haven’t they got someone else to do the job yet? Who’s going to manage all the stuff that he used too?”

According to certain members of the university’s non-academic staff, Lilley’s departure will not be cause for mourning. With several anonymous sources telling Vision: “we won’t be sorry to see the back of him”. These remarks come after a year of spending cuts in the university including, most controversially, cuts in the portering system.

One anonymous staff member alleged: “It is pretty obvious that Keith Lilley was simply brought in for one reason only – cutting costs…[As a result] we have all been scared for our jobs.” Another staff member remarked, “Lilley used to work at the NHS, we were told he cut loads of jobs there…it what some of these management people do, they move from job to job cutting us normal people’s jobs.” The University refused to respond to these allegations.

However, Lilley has also been lauded for many successes during his time as Director of Facilities Management. As reported by Vision in the recent Power List, Lilley has been essential in steering the university’s multi-million pound Heslington East development through the recession. Additionally, one YUSU official told us that Lilley was at the forefront of the successful Hes East swimming pool proposal.

The circumstances around Lilley’s departure are unknown, with Lilley himself refusing to comment. The University did remark that, “Keith Lilley is leaving to take up another position”, but refused to disclose where Lilley is moving, claiming it was “a private matter”.

A Heslington Hall insider hinted that Lilley’s departure had more to do with his 3 hour commute from Sheffield rather than any professional disagreement.

N-Dubz were originally signed to perform a 45-minute set at Wednesday night’s end-of-year celebration. The band’s withdrawal from performing at the event follows a line of similar instances, including headliners Wiley and the Noisettes pulling out of the Freshers and Summer Balls of 2009 respectively.

This year’s Ball was also attended by Scott and Abs of 5ive, Chew Lips and Little Comets. Entertainment was also provided by YUSU societies including Cheesy Pop Soc and Comedy Soc.

Students were informed during the event at 11pm of the decision, which Vision understands to be the result of a lack of contact or communication between YUSU and N-Dubz.

At the time of writing, YUSU representatives were unavailable for comment.

Tickets for the Summer Ball failed to sell out despite being sold for many weeks in the build up to the event, following Democracy and Services Officer-elect Dan Walker’s decision to not hold next year’s Fresher’s Ball at the York Racecourse, reported on by Vision earlier this week. Students were able to opt to attend the party only, or a meal as well.

One graduand spoke to Vision, saying that they felt it was “ridiculous that the headline act has pulled out of YUSU’s flagship event, again. Tickets for the Ball were so expensive and the fact we can’t see the band we were promised, again, is a problem.”

However, it is still to be seen whether the withdrawal of the band was down to event organisers or N-Dubz themselves.

It is yet unclear as to whether or not YUSU will pursue legal action.

The scene of the stabbing, Shell garage, Hull Road

Students have been left “shocked and appalled” following the attack of a student outside the Shell Garage on Hull Road last Friday.

The incident occurred in the early hours of the morning, following a night out. The victim remained in hospital through the weekend.

One second year Maths student was stunned to hear the news: “It’s crazy that something like this can happen so close to campus, especially in a city as safe as York.”

Another student described walking home with the victim at around 5am, and parting with him at the Barbican Centre. It is estimated that the incident took place between 5 and 5.30am.

North Yorkshire Police were unavailable for comment, but Vision has learned that an ambulance was called soon after the crime by a third party and the police were informed in due course. It is understood that police have launched an investigation, though the precise circumstances of the stabbing are yet to surface.

After being treated at York District Hospital, the man was said on Sunday to be making a steady recovery by friends.

YUSU Welfare Officer Ben Humphrys said of the incident: “I can’t stress enough the need to take care of your personal safety. Crime may be comparatively infrequent in York but it does happen, taxis, the YUSU late night minibus, the night bus and the security escort service are all there to ensure you get home safely; please use them.”

Most striking about the event is that it is the culmination of a spate of student related violence and crime over the last academic year. Earlier this month, Vision reported on the suspected assault of a student in the Duchess nightclub by a bouncer. Similarly, an article on Vision’s website reported a week later of three muggings taking place in as many days, all on or around campus. Laptop theft has also taken place throughout the year in the library and directly from students’ rooms.

Another incident involved Mickal Grabarczyk, who in the Autumn Term was on bail for assaulting a police officer and drunk and disorderly behaviour and was offered temporary accommodation by sympathetic students. He also broke into secure accommodation blocks and stole food from student kitchens on multiple occasions, claiming that this was only possible due to poor security on campus. A condition of Grabarczyk’s bail was that he didn’t enter University property.

In a similar vein, ex-Women’s Officers Amal Ali and Ellie Kuper Thomas organised a march around poorly lit areas of campus last December. The march, named “Reclaim the Night” highlighted the risks posed to students from such areas of the university. More recently, students have complained of the security threat posed by many broken front doors to campus accommodation blocks.

All of these are summed up by a Vision investigation in March that revealed that crime on campus had risen by 72%.

For many students the increase of on-campus crime has been blamed on the reduction in portering hours this year, leaving many colleges without 24-hour or weekend porters. However, the University has claimed that the security presence has increased on campus, and denied this assessment.

The victim of Friday’s attack remains in recovery, though Vision cannot provide full details of the event.

Vision has discovered that the university was not prepared to continue financing the ISA as it was not satisfied with how the association was running its financial accounts. It is understood that one of their two accounts, receiving approximately £30,000 a year from the University, was not adequately accounting for its expenditure.

Such a lack of accountability mean that the ISA could have easily signed blank cheques or simply withdrawn funds without anybody noticing.

Vision put these findings to the ISA’s newly elected President, Aaron Ong, he failed to deny them. At the time of press, Ong refused to speak to Vision or answer any questions regarding the matter.

Earlier this year David Duncan, the University’s registrar and secretary, had to call in the ISA’s then-president, Daria Pawlowska, to find out what the ISA was, how it was being run and who was responsible for its various undertakings. It was after this dialogue that the university made its decision over the ISA.

Speaking to Vision, Pawlowska denied that there was any misappropriating of finances but accepted that two accounts led to “confusion” on the University’s part. Pawlowska also supports the idea of going under YUSU, addinng, “we will have more staff support in the future which I’m really looking forward to.” Ong is reportedly not satisfied with this outcome and wants to see the ISA continue as it currently does.

It is likely the university and the union will try to avoid any legal implications by presenting the changes as a restructuring. At last week’s UGM, Ben Humphrys, YUSU Welfare Officer, put forward a motion to incorporate the ISA within the students’ union so that there would still be representation for international students. Although the motion had support, because not enough votes were cast, the proposal did not meet quoracy.

YUSU are likely to push through the agenda in Week 4 of the autumn term, and will take responsibility of the ISA’s commitments until then.

Humphrys commented: “It’s really exciting that we’re going to be working much more closely with the ISA next year and that we’ll be able to give them the staff and sabb support they deserve.”

If and when it passes, the President of the ISA would become a YUSU part-time officer. The ISA would then be demoted, joining the eighteen other sub-committees in the union.

The university’s press officer, David Garner, said of the matter: “We have had discussions with the ISA President and YUSU about the relationship between the ISA, YUSU and the GSA. Those discussions are ongoing with the incoming President following the recent ISA elections. The university will continue to support the International Students’ Association and is committed to working with it to enhance the experience of international students at York.”

The ISA is no stranger to controversy. During their elections last year, every candidate running for president and treasurer were disqualified and by-elections had to be held after the summer break.

It was recently brought to the attention of YUSU Campaigns Committee that a number of students have complained about the security service. On several occasions, the phone has been left ringing for up to a minute before being answered, significantly longer than the maximum five seconds emergency phones should be left unanswered. It has also been reported that in a few cases the phone has not been picked up all.

Following this, YUSU Welfare Officer Ben Humphrys and the Commercial Services under Bailey Oliver launched an investigation into the matter. They discovered that for the past year, the phone has in fact been connected to the ‘General Enquires’ line and not the emergency number.

“I’m outraged. It seems like a dangerous incident of negligence,” said first-year Vanbrugh student Jade Clifford. “What if I needed security urgently because of a personal issue and there was no one there to help?” added fellow Vanbrugh fresher James Stavrakakis.

In response to the findings, YUSU President Tim Ngwena commented that “we were shocked to discover that the red phones aren’t going through to an emergency number; its a massive oversight and one we’ll focus in on to get resolved quickly. We’re pleased that after more initial complaints, security services uncovered this information quickly and are being proactive about resolving it”

When it was decided that Vanbrugh would be losing its 24-hour portering from the start of autumn term, it was argued that the emergency phone would ensure no compromise in student welfare.

YUSU Campaigns officer Luke Sanford stressed that the security blunder was “oversight and not intentional”, but he also stated that “the Red Phones were used to justify the argument that the cuts in portering would not affect student safety, and this supposed ‘emergency’ phone going unanswered for more than 40 seconds, and in come cases not answered at all, is simply not acceptable.”

Furthermore he revealed that the problem might not be fixed until the start of next term, a period the campaigns committee states the need for porters is at its highest.

The committee has thus pushed for 24-hour portering to be reinstated for the first two weeks of next year in support of the influx of new students. Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Students, Jane Grenville, initially committed to this, however that turned out to be a mistake on her part. At the time of printing, the university has only conceded to the scheme for the Freshers’ Week.

“We will continue to call for 24 hour portering in the Freshers Fortnight. Having 24 hour cover in the first week is a good start, but immediately after that in week 2 is when new students venture out on their own into York for the first time, away from organised events and without STYCs to support them, which is when they might really need the porters,” Sanford concludes.

Following speculation over the cancellation of the event, Dancesport’s President, Abigail Wilson, spoke exclusively to Vision about the decision.”It’s about the society – there’s no time to put York Come Dancing on.” She also claims that running the event would “adversely affect our aims.”

As a competitive society, Dancesport represents the University at events like Roses and the NUDC (Northern Universities’ Dance Competition). They recently won 3 out of 4 available points at this year’s Roses.
Wilson noted that training was very important for the society teams, and claimed that running York Come Dancing would mean “little or no training, and the event would clash with things.”

Team Captain Emily Sargeant agreed with the measure, noting that it was a “very difficult” decision to make and that “ultimately it wouldn’t end up working – it’s hard to find a balance between Dancesport as a society and Dancesport as a team.”

However, Vice-President Richard Barker has spoken out against Wilson’s decision saying that “the first YCD was set up as a one off event, but the repeated success this academic year goes to show that it is an event that campus has enjoyed.

“Although Dancesport is a competitive society, this is only one element of the society’s mission statement, and one of the main ones is to provide a platform on which anybody can learn Ballroom and Latin American dance. In my opinion, an event such as York Come Dancing brings unprecedented publicity to the society, and makes people aware of it, people who may have been interested in learning things, but simply did not know about us.”

Barker, along with Sargeant, did admit that this year the timing of the event meant losing out on training for big competitions in Term 2, but noted that in its first year, York Come Dancing was held in Term 3 and worked successfully at the time.

Another of Wilson’s arguments was that previous Dancesport President Luke Malkin chose to run the event “whilst jeopardising his degree” and that she was not willing to do the same.

Barker’s response to this statement was that “although it is a lot of work, there is nobody saying that one single person has to take it upon themselves as Luke did, and in elections for the society, I said that I would create a smaller ‘YCD Committee’ to deal with the organisation of the event.”

Malkin also spoke to Vision, claiming that he would happily run the event again, but would be unable to without being a student. He agreed that it looked like the event “can’t happen this year.” In response to Wilson’s concerns over her academic success, he noted that “yes, my marks for that term weren’t great, but I was happy (or stupid) enough to do it and was really proud of what we all achieved.”

Wilson has conceded that Dancesport may still run some form of event alongside RAG but was unwilling to release details of it until more certain plans were arranged.

The plan is to launch an alternative Dubstep or Drum and Bass type event. It would most likely happen on Monday nights in order to fit in the current YUSU calendar, which sees student nights taking place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Fibbers recently changed hands for the second time in just a few months, having first been bought by HMV and then quickly sold to new owners Tokyo Industries.

Traditionally a venue for live acts, Fibbers has seen the likes of Oasis, Stereophonics and Coldplay perform on its stage.

The operations manager of Tokyo Industries, University of York graduate Nigel Holiday has said that the company aims to preserve what live music fans love about the club, and hopes that Fibbers’ line ups can improve as a result of the company’s connections.

At the same time, Tokyo Industries are expected to invest large sums of money in refurbishing the venue and installing a new sound system in a bid to increase Fibbers’ capabilities as a nightclub, a plan which has most likely prompted the bid for an official student night.

Bretts has said of the possible development, “I’m really excited that we’re going to be able to deliver something different to students.”

Last Thursday on the YUSU website the Environment and Ethics officer posted a congratulatory message over the “egg-cellent news” that, thanks to a UGM motion to remove unethical eggs from campus, Costcutter have decided to stop stocking eggs from caged hens.

The motion was originally proposed by Jason Rose back in February, and was seconded by Luke Capps.
The two argued that, since animal cruelty is no yolk, and battery hens suffer some of the worst living conditions of all farming animals, a campaign should be initiated to encourage the university to crack down on the cruel practice and begin to stock and use eggs from free range hens only. However, members of the campaign are left with egg on their faces as Vision reveals that Costcutter had already egg-ceeded the free range target – over four months before YUSU claimed credit for it.

Indeed, Costcutter has admitted that it changed its policy on free range eggs back in February, as a result of a Vision enquiry.

February’s edition of Vision reported that People and Planet Society hoped to hold a debate over whether or not stocking only free range eggs in Costcutter would infringe upon our right to choose, but accepted that the opportunity to actually lobby the university for change was at the mercy of a UGM proposal.

After going to print in February, Vision reporters approached Costcutter to enquire about the possibility of running a trial period of selling solely free range eggs. The idea was accepted, and Costcutter managers later made the idea a permanent fixture in the store as a result of this enquiry, at least three months before the UGM motion managed to pass through the voting process.

When asked about the distinctly scrambled situation, Jason Rose said “I wouldn’t give the entire credit to Vision,” claiming that he put forward the motion before the trial run, and it was only delays in the motion reaching quoracy that caused Vision to poach the campaign.

Yet this doesn’t change the fact that YUSU bureaucracy meant they took months focusing on something that had already been achieved! You could probably have fried an egg on their faces!

The vehicles half-mount the pavement and obstruct both pedestrians on the street and moving vehicles on the road. Peter Rek, a second year Economics student commented, “walking past people has become a right hassle” and that “cycling is even more of a chore, if a bus is trying to overtake you it becomes a right mess!” highlighting fears surrounding safety on the roads.

A majority of the cars display staff car park permits, which has prompted the university to send out an angry email to its employees claiming that certain staff had been “contravening parking regulations.”

However, one anonymous lecturer pointed out, “with no yellow lines or parking restrictions on the road, it would seem that there are no parking regulations to contravene.”

Responding to these allegations, the university press officer, David Garner, said they had “made contact with City of York Council, which has statutory responsibility for enforcing on-street parking regulations,” additionally stating that they “are informing the Police of any cars causing an obstruction in this location.”

The university advises that there are parts of the car park still open in addition to further parking spaces in Halifax / St Lawrence Court, Fairfax House and Heslington East (which includes a free shuttle bus to Heslington West).