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University students face £800 fines if they break strict new coronavirus rules

7 August 2020, 07:26 | Updated: 7 August 2020, 07:35

University students could face fines of £800. Picture: Getty Images

New guidelines mean University students could be fined up to £800 for having overnight visitors.

Students starting University in September are facing a very different freshers week this year.

Gone are the lecture theatres full of people and wild club nights, instead replaced with online teaching and ‘Zoom socials’.

And now one University has taken this one step further as they have banned their undergraduates from having parties and overnight visitors at their halls.

New students at Bristol University are restricted to a bubble of 12 to 15 students in their accommodation.

University students will have to social distance from their friends. Picture: PA Images

This means they will only be allowed to meet those people in their “living circle”.

These meets will have to be outside, and will still have to follow all social distancing rules.

If any student is caught defying the strict guidelines, they face fines of up to £800, both at Uni and in the community.

According to The Sun, students have been told: “You will not be allowed to have anyone other than those in your living circle inside your flat.

“After the first two weeks, you will not need to distance from your living circle as they are your new household.”

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Bristol Uni also announced that all lectures will be online, with small group face-to-face teaching.

Meanwhile a few other universities are reportedly drawing up similar plans to stop the spread of COVID-19, including University College London, Cambridge and Aberystwyth.

Nick Hillman, director of the think tank, the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “This will clearly make having close student friendships and intimate relationships difficult.

“Universities are doing the right thing [but] I do hope it will be temporary. Certainly the experience of freshers’ week will be very different.”

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This comes after areas of the north west have been put under lockdown again due to a spike in coronavirus cases.

Manchester, parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire are facing stricter measures which include a ban on people from different households meeting in private homes or gardens.

Anyone found ignoring the rules could be fined £100, or up to a maximum of £3,200 for repeat offences.

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