‘Devastated’ UK Students Forced To Live In Neighbouring Cities In University Accommodation Crisis
Jessie Smith, an 18-year-old who recently received acceptance to Manchester University, was overjoyed after netting the top grades required for the course. However, she soon learned that the university was facing a shortage of student accommodation. She was forced to seek lodging in Liverpool. Sarah Smith, Jessie’s mother, who works in Sheffield, fears for her daughter’s safety, given the distance between Liverpool and Manchester. Manchester University offered £100 per week to cover accommodation expenses but Mrs Smith did not feel that this resolved the situation. Furthermore, she fears her daughter will miss out on the freshers’ week events.
Manchester University has confirmed that more than 350 students are still waiting for student halls placement, despite last week’s offer of £2,500 to students living within commuting distance and willing to live at home. However, now 75 students are still awaiting official accommodation. The university is refurbishing alternative accommodation, hoping that students will have a place within the city in a few months. Manchester’s Metropolitan University’s student halls are also oversubscribed, with the university offering £100 per week to first-year students who are willing to accept accommodation in Liverpool or Huddersfield.
Despite Manchester and Strathclyde Universities facing a high demand for accommodation, universities across the UK are struggling with unprecedented demand this year. Universities have long anticipated an increase in the number of 18-year-olds. However, recent pandemic-related challenges, three years of high-quality A-level results and many students who deferred their placements have further amplified the situation. Universities advise students to seek private accommodation. Students have reported similar struggles in other cities such as Bristol, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Glasgow University has informed new students that they cannot guarantee them accommodation for the academic year. Students living within commuting distance have been automatically declined housing, due to an increase in demand for places, accompanied by a reduction in Glasgow’s private rental market. A parent from Oldham has stated that his daughter and two friends are without a home for her first year studying philosophy, after the private flat they had secured fell through. The increase in student rentals is not new, although universities and campaigners maintain that the situation is worsening, with landlords withdrawing from the student market and transitioning to running more financially beneficial Airbnb lets.
A sociology student in Edinburgh recounts that she and her friends won a race for their first privately rented student flat in 2019 due to the high volume of competition. They planned to reside there during their master’s degrees in the forthcoming term. However, early this year, the landlord hiked up their rent by over £100 each, forcing them to vacate their residence. When passing the building a few months later, McGill found a key box beside her former front door. Their flat had been transformed into an Airbnb holiday let.
Campaigners refer to the above eviction as a "silent eviction," in which landlords force tenants out through unfeasible rental increases, so they can convert their assets into profitable holiday lets. St Andrews University attributed a rental scarcity to the surge in Airbnb rentals and advised prospective students to commute from Dundee, approximately an hour away. Scotland’s tenants’ union Living Rent’s spokesperson, Elle Glenny, explained that the limited residences resulted from a housing market that highlighted the profit of landlords over the home requirement of tenants.
More than 500 first-year students have been waitlisted for university flats at the University of West England, Bristol, due to "a high volume of applications." However, students have been offered accommodations in Newport, across the border in Wales, at no extra travel costs. Bristol is another prime location for Airbnb rentals, with hundreds throughout the city. Experts highlight the rising rental prices and landlords’ "unfair practices" as a cause of student suffering. The University is readying nine hundred new flats for next year, with more to follow. Nevertheless, Bristol City Council has restricted permitting planning permissions on student accommodation, putting pressure on new-build developments.
