NEWCHANGE CONTROVERSY - VC RESPONDS: Decision to Decommission Bunsen Burners

Item from the Vice-Chancellor's Office:

In my capacity as Vice-Chancellor, I briefly address here the decision of the Upper Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology to decommission all bunsen burners owned by the Faculty.

After having considered the views of Professors in the School of Chemistry who suggested that such items were critically necessary to Laboratory experiments, we nevertheless felt that in light of health and safety considerations that there was no way of resisting the conclusion that we must, as a matter of health and safety, decommission these laboratory items.

A report we commissioned from Risk Management Consultants Ltd on this specific matter in 2005 highlighted to us the very real risk that many students were potentially exposed to the risk of sustaining burns in circumstances where they make 'very' careless contact with these burners. The Report, entitled, 'The Risks posed to students from 'very' careless contact with Bunsen Burners' also illustrated that 1% of students interviewed did not realise that Bunsen burners could burn them if they were 'very' careless. So on the view of this overwhelming evidence, we regret that we shall have to decommission these laboratory items.

In addition, though extraneous to our decision-making process, the decommissioning and sale of these items alongside steps to secure the rental of the Senior Common Room to local industry concerns will serve to offset 0.000014% of the costs of the Faculty's recent rebranding exercise.