CityBlock The Village @ The Viaduct

Cityblock is a good place to live, quite near the city center while surrounded by woods with a park nearby. I have been living here during the COVID period. Studio here is perfect for someone who has a special concern for hygiene, and a few measures have been in place to ensure the safety of residents. Meanwhile, the reception is still open during lockdown for parcel and other services. It’s safe to say it’s a good option for lockdown period to live.

I really enjoyed living in the viaduct for my 2021-2022 academic year. As soon as I arrived, the staff were very friendly and welcoming. My studio is amazing, I have an incredible view and due to the fact that it is surrounded by woods, you can hear birds chittering. The viaduct has parking space (which is very convenient), a lovely outside area and a common room- which I have used to study but also party. Andrew has been very helpful during my time here, he’s very cheerful, and will always help out. I particularly like the viaduct because it is a safe place but also for the good wifi.

Would not recommend you book here at all. This place will ruin your student experience. So many issues - dirty, broken furniture, bug infestation… to name a few issues. The worst of all is the appalling communication and treatment I have received from management - who claim to care about the mental health of students, but only seem to contribute to worsening it. I would advise you steer clear of this accommodation and stay elsewhere.

Staff are very friendly and helpful. The location is great, it takes 10-15 minutes to get to the city centre. I had a very pleasant experience staying at CityBlock for a year.

This is my second year living at city block and i have had a lovely experience. Especially with the housing crisis in Durham i dont think there could be a better option to live at other than City Block. Maintenance requests are dealt with in a timely manner. The staff at site are extremely friendly and helpful and the over all environment feels very secure and home like. Will definitely be booking city block for next year as well!!!

Lived here for 3 years now, and had a really pleasant experience. The rooms are large, clean and well designed. The bathrooms are great, and have really good showers, with plenty of hot water. The shared kitchen in my flat is in excellent condition, and has plenty of cupboard space. Maintenance is fast to respond to any issues, and the reception team are really friendly and helpful. I have had a really nice time living here.

Two stars for the safe and peaceful life staying at Cityblock between Dec. 2020 and Sept. 2021, its a quiet place for living and studying especially when i have to take courses online. Also, it's close to the city centre.

The lost three stars for the unexpected charge after i checked out - When i completed my check-out and was supposed to return the keys to the manager, the office was shut temporarily. Therefore, for safety reason, I put my keys on my studio mailbox (its locked so its 100% safe) and sent an email (on Friday at 1ish pm) immediately asking the accommodation team to check the keys in the mailbox. However, they wait until the next Thursday to reply my email, telling me that they didn't find the keys (but a new tenant in my studio has already moved in on Monday so I didn't know where did they get the keys to the new tenant). So I asked them to check the mailbox again, probably also check the up and bottom boxes, they didn't reply my email again (So i thought they must have received the email, because they always choose to reply or not reply no matter how important the email is).

However, they decided to charge me with a great amount of money, I feel fine if i did lost the keys or took the keys, but they avoided all of my confusions regarding the keys and ignore the request of checking the CCTV, even they should take the responsibility of their late reply, but i made a compromise and accepted the charge in the end - its no use to argue with them anymore if they do wanna charge me!

The same charge situation with different reasons have been widely discussed in our group chat within International Chinese students, as well as based on the previous Google review from a Chinese student, so i hope it is just a coincidence that we - as Chinese students - get charged by the accommodation with ridiculous reasons (ridiculous as in they avoided all the questions we asked and just simply make a charge).

If not, please double check before making a decision to pay for the one-time rent payment.

I stayed at Cityblock from 2020 - 2021 and thoroughly enjoyed my stay. The staff are very genuine people and incredibly helpful. In regards to Covid, the Cityblock staff ensured that everyone was updated on the forever changing rules from the government and swiftly adapted Cityblock to meet the outlined requirements. I plan to return to Cityblock as it is hassle free accommodation and I highly recommend to any student looking for a place to stay.

In addition, due to the amount of students that choose city block it is quite the social hub.