WORRIED students who say their university halls of residence are "basically uninhabitable" found themselves in hot water again at the weekend.

A burst pipe, the latest in a string of issues at £5,000-a-year Lyme Regis House, caused boiling water to leak through several flats, and forced the evacuation of the Tesco supermarket store below.

The incident took place on the evening of Saturday, March 23 at around 9.30pm at Bournemouth University's Lansdowne Campus in Holdenhurst Road. Firefighters rushed to the scene during the incident.

First year student Maria Popa said: "Boiling hot water was pouring out under pressure and flooding the whole flat, as well as the flats below us.

"The issue was so bad that after five or ten minutes of the leak, the Tesco Express four floors below was getting flooded, and as a result ended up having to close early that night."

However, students told the Daily Echo Friday's incident was just the latest in a string of problems at the block, which is home to around 400 undergraduates.

"Back in November, the majority of flats had no access to hot water for a whole week," said Maria.

"In my case, it was three weeks straight.

"No compensation was given despite a number of complaints to head office. Since then we have had a hot water shortage at least once or twice a month."

The latest leak left water pouring through the building for an hour, students said.

Lauren Francis, a 19-year-old first-year undergraduate, said: "We had no hot water for four days leading up to the latest

"Apparently some kind of temporary fix was put in, then we had this massive pipe burst.

"There was hot water leaking into all the flats below – it went into the common room, into all the light fittings.

"We were very worried about this, I decided to leave the building because I didn't feel safe in it anymore."

The block is operated by Campus Living Villages (CLV).

Despite efforts to contact them, no-one has been available for comment to date.

Maria said: "The two maintenance guys that work here have been amazing, and they've fixed as much as they can and as soon as possible. They're just unable to fix any major maintenance issues because they haven't been able to get the funding from CLV.

"Unfortunately CLV is not taking us seriously, but at this point all the residents are frustrated enough to consider protesting or even going as far as getting lawyers involved.

"A petition on change.org has also recently been created, with over 100 signatures so far.

"CLV refuse to compensate us in any way, or reduce our next rent instalment. Unfortunately they also seem to refuse to make any necessary maintenance just to save money, making Lyme Regis House basically inhabitable."