Grace's experience living in Battery Park

Hi, I'm Grace

I'm a second year student studying English Literature. During my first year, I lived in Battery Park in Selly Oak and I want to tell you all about my experience. Battery Park was my first choice as the accommodation itself is exceptionally modern with social and silent study spaces. It's based in the heart of Selly Oak, alongside the canal and next door to the Battery Retail Park.

Location

With Aldi and Sainsbury's extremely close by, along with restaurants, pubs, cafés, and fast-food outlets, I found living in a self-catered accommodation effortless! With only a 15-minute walk to campus, attending the 9:00 am lectures were so easy and there are parks and green spaces close by. Additionally, the campus gym, Tiverton gym and a Gym Group are all in a 5–15-minute radius, and Selly Oak train station is a 2-minute walk, just opposite to the accommodation. This made travelling home and around Birmingham so simple.

Accommodation

The bedrooms were spacious, set with a wardrobe, drawers, lots of storage space including cupboards and under the bed storage, as well as black-out blinds, large windows, full length mirror, pin-boards, a desk, and chair, two bins and coat hooks. The space in the bedrooms also gave me the ability to have my friends from home stay and visit for a weekend, which I really appreciated in my first year.

In the kitchen, you are provided with a large fridge freezer, microwave, toaster, kettle, dining table and chairs, lots of cupboard space and a sofa to encourage social time with your flatmates! The kitchen is very spacious which made it accessible for four students to easily cook at the same time and was a great space for hosting social events with friends.

Social life

Making friends is made easy with pool tables, table football and table tennis as well as a cinema room! The rooms are en-suites with a shared kitchen which is divided between 4-8 people. My flat was on the 11th floor which I shared with three other female flatmates. We had fantastic views, peace when studying but also a close relationship as we were such a small flat.

Moving into Battery was daunting, being away from home in a new city, but I instantly made friends on the first night. There were events the halls were hosting including pizza nights, holiday themed events such as pumpkin carving and bauble decorating, arts and crafts, movie nights, game nights and so much more. Me and my friends loved decorating the flat for Halloween and Christmas, picnics by the canal and in the summer, sunbathing in the park!

Things to do

We are also huge football fans, so the sports pub down the road was a Sunday tradition for us every week and our treat was a delicious curry in The Soak. I had a fantastic experience living in Battery as it perfected the combination between peace for studying and social spaces for when it was time to unwind!