Yes if you're brought up in Wakefield, the night life is exciting for exactly 10 minutes when your about 16 but the fact is they ship coach loads in from all over the country to sample the delights of Wakey's nightlife. it's amazing how many people I've bumped into on my travels who when I mention that I come from Wakey, they've actually been here on a pub crawl.

Accommodation would be a huge problem, it's not something you can easily remedy not even by building halls of residence, of course this depends on the size of the University to start with. When I was at Uni in Hull, there was something like 23 thousand people in that City going to University and the amount of student housing was huge and spread all over the City, it would be very hard to do something similar in Wakefield even on a smaller scale.

I was referring to your assertion that an influx of students would make the night life 'better!'

I'm not really sure if Wakefield is still considered a good night out any more - it certainly was when I was of an age to be there on a regular basis and it was very much the norm to have a line of coaches at the top of Westgate dropping people off from all over the country. It was rammed from Thursday to Saturday, without fail, with another spike on Monday for 10p a pint night and latterly, the free drinks night across the road.

Thesedays, on the rare occasions I do go into Wakey, it's dead until around about the time I'm going home, when there appears to be an influx of already drunk teenagers; I gather the modern way of doing things is to get drunk at home on cheap supermarket booze, then go out later to a club that stays open til 6am or somesuch?

Kids today etc etc.

Can't blame them at the prices in town, even now I can't afford to go out on the lash in town every weekend far too expenisve, so no wonder the teenagers can't, £20 gets you nowhere.

Ooh you are a crotchety old knacker!!!

What makes you say that?

Well I can't argue there...being a student myself, most of the students I see on a night out could be described with words that aren't acceptable to use on here. I think a load of students were to move to the city, they wouldn't necessarily be going to places down Westgate though, there would probably be a small area around Thornes park or somewhere that would see a few bars springs up and the odd club maybe...a lot of students wouldn't feel very comfortable with a night in Wakey I don't think.

I know what you mean about the drunk teenagers turning up at home time, I'm often guilty of doing similar. Its much cheaper to go and have a few pints in the local then get a taxi into Wakey at about 12 when the average price is about £4 for anything in town and £2.50 a pint in the pub. I wish I had the chance to go out in Wakey about 10-12 years ago when it was really a good night (or so I'm told).

Also, on the student accommodation side of things, The biggest issue would be the student houses, about 3/4 of students live in rented student houses...I'm not sure there would be enough housing in the city to accommodate a university, unless it was very small....

The old rule of thumb for me when going out in Wakefield these days is 'stay off Westgate between Buzz and The Black Swan'.

As far as housing goes, there will hopefully be a large plot of land available for building on soon. Somewhere around the BelleVue area???

Wakefield being a University City would certainly add to its profile,and the influx of out of town and foregn students contributing to the local economy..Most of you know Headingley very well and will be aware that students have always been there ,but in the last 10-15 years they are now probably 85% of the population of the area,and residents who are still there have to put up with student behaviour etc and of course they cant even sell their houses except to private landlords who rent to students.When I visit home and walk round the streets and see those fine houses trashed its heartbreaking.The student accomodation thing really does need looking into whenever a decision is made

I can imagine, living in Bradford I've always been jealous of the student accommodation in Headingley, if I lived in a house like that, I'd want to keep it looking brilliant...too many people not appreciating what they've got.

What you are describing is a problem common to any rental/transcient area not just because the occupants are students. Students whilst often being drunken arrisholes are i would gusess statistically less likely to smash your window in and nick your TV, or do your granny in for her bus fare.

Conversely, I like to do most of my burgling in Headingley thesedays - badly secured houses, occupied by 4-5 almost permanently drunk people, who are out on the lash most nights = multiple TV's, laptops, ipods and phones; gives much more bang for the buck so to speak.

Ha ha ha, true my friend a fair few years ago, was at Manchester Uni and his house was in the Moss Side area of the City and he used to say that when all the new students moved in during September, it was like winning the lottery for the local criminals, open season on the local student population.

Well that kind of thing was never going to happen at Headingley,Ive seen many changes to the suburb in the 50s-60s, it was upper midlle class 70s -80s ,it was like young professionals, intelligencia left wing leaning politically,and of course older people who go back generations,but when the student population in Leeds exploded and landlords started buying up property and thses posh kids from the home counties away from home for the first time allus had their bums wiped really have trashed the area and even if the housing market was OK people who have stayed on would not be able to sell at the going rate.I have heard plans are afoot to try to introduce families back to the area ,and move students to ready built accomodation.Having said that I think the City of Wakefield would get an uplift from students in the city centre I.E restuarants ,food outlets etchey all spend money so it would enhance the local economy

Not really funny that as I have a son who lives in a student house at the back of The cricket stadium and his girlfriend also in same are whose house has recently been burgled

It wasn't really meant to be funny; students are statistically much more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators and I'm sure I read somewhere that Headingley is one of the most burgled wards in the country; some of the reasons for that are exactly as I've described above - they don't secure their properties properly, are out of the house regularly and have 4 of everything in the one house.

p.s I am not a burglar.

I understand how you might have been offended by this, but I've been broken into twice in Bradford and I still had a chuckle.

I wish you'd put that on your first post, just got a right mouthful from the local constabulary when I had to ring them and cancel my call for them to come round to your house.

Grass!

I prefer an artificial surface myself - Denis Betts and the rest of the Widnes faithful keep telling me it is far superior!!

Then you're an i-Grass! Either way, I've just spent the afternoon in a small room being interviewed by two of Wakefield's finest; that'll learn me.

Define finest?

Think he means the old bill.

My question still stands lol

I'll have nothing said against them!