BY ATHA DEVELOPMENTS

SAFE STUDENT ACCOMMODATION IN MIDDLESBROUGH

We know that looking for safe student accommodation in Middlesborough can be a difficult task. Here at Atha Developments, our main priority during these uncertain circumstances is to make sure our tenants feel safe, secure, and most importantly, at home.

We would like to use this post reassure students, parents or any other individual who may be concerned about how serious we are taking Covid-19, that we have taken every precaution in all of our buildings to prioritise the health and wellbeing of our tenants.

We have been working hard putting new health and safety measures in place, which are all outlined below. However, if anyone has any questions for us or would like to chat one to one about our student accommodation & Covid-19 repercussions, we’re more than happy to help.

How have we prepared our building for new tenants moving in?

We have taken numerous measures to ensure our building is as safe as possible for our new tenants. Firstly, we enlisted the services of “Natri-san”, who are a sanitising fogging company specialising in preventing the spread of viruses in schools, hospitals, retail stores, and of course, boarding establishments – such as ours.

After thorough research into the most effective sanitising methods, we found fogging to be the most popular used by UK businesses and felt confident their services would help provide a safe living space for our tenants. The Natri-san fogging team covered every individual room, along with all communal rooms & areas in the building. Their non chemical solutions kills 99.9% of bacteria, and this procedure was carried out a few days prior to the new intake of tenants.

Along with the fogging preparation, we also scheduled in our usual end of year deep clean. This is carried out by a local cleaning company, and gave us that extra peace of mind that we had the full building as hygienic and clean as possible using professional services.

Also, as an extra precaution, we (Tom & Jack Atha) have been carrying out an additional clean 24 hours prior to the tenants moving in to their rooms. We have also implemented a new rule & left a 7 day gap between the old tenant moving out, and the new tenant moving in.

We feel these preparation steps have given both us and our tenants some much needed reassurance that every possible step has been taken to prevent a Covid-19 outbreak in our building & that we are providing safe student accommodation in Teesside.

How are we ensuring we maintain these levels of hygiene and safety?

When looking for safe student accommodation in Middlesbrough, there are a number of things that you must consider. First of all, we have placed hand sanitiser stations outside every communal door and also next to the lifts on each of the floor levels. We now carry out daily cleans throughout our building in the areas with the most touch points, such as door handles, communal areas, etc. We also repeat our deep clean routine in the high traffic areas, this includes the cinema room, private study room, main lounge, laundry room, stairs & reception.

One of the key measures we have put in place to ensure we remain teessides safest student accommodation is the introduction of our ‘Covid Monitors’. This is a new role we have created amongst our tenants to ensure we can monitor the activity in our building as much as possible, especially at times when we are not present. An example of how this is helping us stay Covid secure is with gatherings in the common rooms. In line with government guidelines, we have stated that there can be no more than 6 people in the common room at any one time. To make sure everyone is sticking to this rule and keeping each other safe, our Covid Monitors regularly check this and ensure the rules are being stuck to.

We have found the introduction of our Covid Monitors to not only be a fantastic way of keeping all tenants in our student accommodation up to date with the latest guidelines, but also a way of offering a friendly face to those who feel worried. It’s quite normal at the minute to be feeling anxious and unsettled, especially in an environment away from home. Our Covid Monitors have been brilliant in providing extra support and fellowship to each other, and an additional point of contact if the students have not had chance to speak to us themselves.

What are our future plans for keeping our student accommodation safe & our tenants happy?

As much as we are all hoping Covid-19 will soon be a distant memory, it’s looking like we are still going to be dealing with this for a little while. We will be continuing to monitor the official updates everyday and adjusting our regulations accordingly. For example, if we get to a stage where people have to isolate in our building, we will ensure we put measures in place to help life to continue as normal as possible for them.

We genuinely care about the health & wellbeing of our tenants, peers & community. We will continue to go above and beyond to provide safe student accommodation in Teesside & we hope we will all get through this together.

As we mentioned earlier in this post, we are always on hand to help. If anyone has any questions, you can reach us at athadevelopments@outlook.com.