Select members of the Cambridge student body have gone into collective mourning after the County Council approved plans to revamp the Lion Yard shopping centre. This will see a 125-room hotel built, forcing the nightclub Ballare, known to Cambridge University students as ‘Cindies’, to relocate underground. The club will have to close as works take place, which are expected to last up to two years.

Though still early days, the plans for the swanky new underground revamp look to make it a more inclusive place for students and residents alike to let loose. Council planning officer Mairead O’Sullivan noted in CambridgeshireLive that currently, “disabled users can’t access the club at the same point” as other users, which will be remedied by the relocation underground.

In minutes from a Cambridge City Council Planning Commitee meeting, it was stated that the “current proposal integrates a lift into the main nightclub entrance and would improve wheelchair access to the venue.”

The plans also include two separate dancefloors, and the club will be fitted with “state-of-the-art equipment” that will prevent “noise leakage”.

Nothing epitomises Durkheim’s concept of the sacred and the profane quite like the drunken screams of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by blues sports teams reverberating off St. Andrew the Great Church. As Cllr Lucy Nethsingha was quoted in CambridgeshireLive, the extra space around the church that the plans will create is “particularly to be welcomed”.

However, some councillors failed to answer the question on everyone’s lips: what will replace the iconic freshers week foam party? Some view this baptism of foam at Cindies as a rite of passage for new Cambridge students. To keep this time-honoured tradition alive, some students have suggested putting fairy liquid in the King’s College fountain whilst repeatedly throwing themselves on the cold, hard ground.

There’s no word yet as to when the iconic site will be shutting down for it’s facelift, and a spokeswoman for Cindies told the Cambridge Independent, “it’s very much business as usual for Ballare”. They are currently “in talks with the landlords to minimise the time that [they] may be closed”.

Some students are welcoming the change, with one student telling Varsity, “Cindies never play Jay-Z’s version of ‘Crazy in Love’. That better be something they change in the renovations.”

With the impending closure looming, all that’s left is for us to do is to sip our VKs with a strong resolution to get the most from the time we have left of a club that isn’t a sweaty hole in the floor. Soon, the choice we will face is either Vinyl or brave a night in the sauna that is Fez, quietly singing ‘The Circle of Life’ under our breath, with tears in our eyes.