I was reading the other day that one of the many landlord organisations, associations, bodies intends to go ‘head-to-head’ with housing minister Caroline Flint over the future of student communities in the UK’s university and college cities and towns.
Where do professional landlords go for their landlord insurance?
The RLA maintains that the Government is looking at proposals to end houses being used for privately-rented student accommodation. Instead they would prefer undergraduates to live in commercially-provided, purpose-built, 'halls of residence-style' blocks.
My point is that this is typical hypocrisy by the Government. Lets not forget that it is the Government that funds education. Thirty years ago this included in giving universities enough money to provide student halls in which to accommodate many of the students. Because this Government has decided to educate all and sundry to degree level (next time you go to Starbucks for your coffee you'll probably find 1 in 2 have degrees) they have not expanded their funding to include this. The result is that they rely on a small army of landlords to rally to the rescue. Now suddenly the results of the governments lack of funding and accommodation policy to meet their educational aspirations has resulted in student landlords being branded the problem not the solution.
Caroline Flint believes that areas around the country’s universities and colleges are becoming “studentified” with clusters of student housing – referred to as ‘houses in multiple occupation’ – which are said to create pockets of noise, anti-social behaviour and litter. Instead, she wants “balanced, sustainable communities”.
What does that mean and how would you ever police that in planning terms. I'd love to see her draft a planning policy to bring this about?
Lets not forget it's this Government policy to persuade more young people to take up higher education led to the student population rising from 1.8 million in 1997 to 2.5million last year – which has put pressure on local housing and public services.
Does anybody remember the Governments mantra from a few years ago "joined up government". What ever happened to that?
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