Changing student
geographies in the UK
Dr Darren P. Smith
Reader in Geography
Loughborough University
Bricks, Bed and and Higher Education, SRHE, London
18 October 2012
Researchers: Alexis Alamel, Stacey Balsdon, Hao Gu & Chloe Kinton
Structure
• Background / processes of studentification
• Mid-1990s – Housing in Multiple Occupation
(HMO)
• Mid-2000s – Purpose Built Student
Accommodation (PBSA)
• 2010s – segregated ‘student-only’ housing
areas?
Definition of studentification
• ‘Urban changes tied to growing
concentrations of university
students’
• ‘[Studentification is] the social and
environmental changes caused by very large
numbers of students living in particular areas
of a town or city’ (Macmillan English Dictionary, 2003).
Smith (2000)
• Social: the replacement and / or displacement of established
residents with a transient, generally young and single, social
grouping
• Cultural: the growth of concentrations of young people with
shared cultures and lifestyles, and consumption practices, which
in turn results in the increase of certain types of retail and
service infrastructure
• Physical: the downgrading or upgrading of the physical
environment, depending on the local context
• Economic: the inflation of property prices and a change in the
balance of the housing stock resulting in neighbourhoods
becoming dominated by private rented accommodation and
houses in multiple occupation, and decreasing levels of owneroccupation.
HE student population: England and Wales 1995/96 - 2005/06
2500000
Total students
2000000
1500000
1000000
500000
0
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
1999/00
2000/01
2001/02
2002/03
2003/04
2004/05
Academic year of study
Total HE students
Total HE students
Total p-grads
Total u-grads
Total ft u-grads
Total pt u-grads
2005/06
2006/07
Student populations
– 2.4 million students in higher education in the UK
(HESA, 2010).
– The scale of the internal migration of students at
the onset and end of the academic year has been
metaphorically compared to the to the annual
de/re-population of Birmingham (Smith, 2009).
Origins of my work in Leeds (1999)
Academic interest
• Societal trends:
– Socio-spatial segregation
– Population transience
– Mobility
– Higher-density living
– Household restructuring – ‘solo’ living/friendships
– Marginalisation
– Social conflicts due to different lifestyles
1. Studentification in the 1990s
• Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO)
– Conversion of dwelling housing (Use Classes Order
= C3)
– No planning permission was required
More socially-mixed communities within some
established neighbourhoods?
HMO-dominated neighourhoods
1.
Higher levels of population transience
–
Less attachment and sense of belonging
–
–
–
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Breakdown of community cohesion
Lower levels of social capital / electoral voting
Fragmentation of sense of community
Increased density of population
–
Associated environmental challenges (e.g. refuse, litter, flytipping, car
parking, noise)
Lack of affordable housing
Dilapidation of housing stock
Higher levels of crime
Rise of uni-dimensional / mono population structures
–
7.
8.
Loss of social mixing
Increased resources required for day-to-day management
Contradiction of balanced and sustainable communities
•
Closure of schools, nurseries, etc
• Percentage in PRS (1991-2001)
Data limitations (2007)
• England (390,315)
• London (125,610) - unique processes?
• Outside London (264,705)
• 61x University towns and cities (157,252)
• 8x Coastal university towns (32,262)
– Brighton (15,000)
• 26x Coastal towns (34,919)
• 226x Other LAs (40,272)
Total HMO
Studentification?
• 71.2% of HMO outside London is found in
university towns
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Liverpool (13,000)
Manchester (9,155)
Leeds (7,622)
Southampton (7,600)
Bristol (7,500)
Nottingham (6,900)
Sheffield (6,881)
Newcastle upon Tyne (6,500)
HMOH Index
HMOH index
• Quartiles (4=highest, 1=lowest)
• 95.1% of university towns in quartiles 3 and 4
• 100% of coastal university towns in quartiles 3
and 4
• 73.1% of coastal towns in quartiles 3 and 4
• 66.8% of other LAs in quartiles 1 and 2
• 33.2% of other LAs in quartiles 3 and 4
National politics – mid-2000s
• Agreement in national politics that
studentification had led to unbalanced local
communities and neighbourhoods
• BUT – there is no need to change planning and
housing legislation
National Politics
– National HMO Lobby
• ‘The Lobby therefore opposes concentrations of HMOs in general (as a
unique threat to the sustainability of communities) and studentification in
particular (as the principal cause and effect of HMO concentrations).’
– APPG for Balanced and Sustainable Communities
• ‘Whilst the group welcomes the contribution students make to towns and
cities in the UK, it is concerned about the impact of an imbalance
between student and local residents’ housing. The group therefore
supports: changes in planning law to possibly control the amount of
student housing in particular streets and thus ensure that our
communities are balanced; a requirement to license all private rented
accommodation, including student housing; adequate provision for
family housing in all communities.’
2. The rise of PBSA
– Studentification: A Guide To Opportunities, Challenges and
Practices
• Commissioned / published by: UniversitiesUK/SCOP
• Funded by: DfES & ODPM, LGA
• Launched: UUK conference January 2006
• Parliamentary launch: 27th June 2006
– Remit:
• To scope and assess the scale and nature of the challenges
associated with large concentrations of student populations
• To identify current practice to address these [high concentrations
of students] through consideration of some case studies
The policy response to the Studentification Guide
– Dispersal of students away from existing overconcentrations in HMO
– Halting the formation of new over-concentrations
of students in HMO
– Via the promotion of PBSA
– Via the refurbishment / upgrade of university-maintained /
managed accommodation (UPP)
– Via the better management of HMO (Unipol)
– PBSA=reclaim HMO for ‘family housing’
– PBSA=facilitate ‘mixed’, ‘balanced’ & sustainable
communities
Purpose-built student accommodation
The solution to:
• enhance the quality and management of student
accommodation
• regulate the behaviour of some (anti-social) students
• solve refuse collection issues, etc
• (re)turn student areas to family housing
• control student leisure & recreation spaces (i.e. bars)
• reduce use of private vehicles and on-street parking
• circulate information leaflets and enhance
communication with students about behaviour, etc
• Increase electoral voting, etc...
Nottingham
– Building Balanced Communities Supplementary
Planning Document (March, 2007)
• Total full-time students requiring accomm.=39,724
• Students with term-time address in city=32,604
• PBSA = 23,408
• Remaining students= 9,165
Newcastle
• ‘The Newcastle Housing Strategy identifies the need for
approximately 6,000 additional units in the city by 2011
(as much as possible in purpose and managed
accommodation)’ (SHG, March, 2007)
• Interim Planning Guidance on Purpose Built Student
Housing (November, 2007)
– ‘Taking into account all the sites assessed it estimated that they
jointly have the potential capacity for in the region of 13,604 to
16,420 additional bed spaces’ (p.56).
Leeds
• H15 - ASHORE > Areas of Housing Mix
• City Heights (5,000+ bed spaces)
• Leeds City-centre sites (Unite Plaza, Opal 3,
etc)
City Heights (2006)
Opal 1 and 2
Concept Place and beyond
Plaza
Opal 3
21st Century Student Living
The commodification of studenthood
and student living?
e.g.
Chatterton (2010)
Hubbard (2008, 2009)
Holloway et al (2010)
Hassle-free residential searching
Choice of locations
Choice of accommodation
Pool of peers for socialising/friendships
Ensuite / Privacy
‘Easy living’
‘Student Living Made Easy’
Home from home comforts
Good landlord and a responsive service
Limited commuting costs and time
Safety and Security
Gates and fences
Gates and fences
Reception
Modern living
City-centre living - Nottingham
Services and latest technology
Nintendo Wii
Lifestyle packages .. And savings
Leisure Clubs
Fun Fun Fun
Fun ‘n’ Frolics
What do students NOT get in PBSA?
– Independence and the path to adulthood
– Interactions with established residential
communities / neighbours
– Experience in the wider housing market and
interactions with institutions (letting agents)
– Relatively low weekly rents
– Higher levels of choice
– The ‘proper’ student experience
– Flexible living
New ghettos ‘in the sky’ – ‘balanced communities’?
‘Gated-communities’ and ‘divided societies’?
Brown-field sites
PBSA and urban regeneration
Segmentation of student housing market (2009)
• 51% shared student houses
• 22% university maintained
• 9% commercial Purpose-Built Student
Accommodation (PBSA)
• 18% parental / guardian home
• This is being reconfigured!
Current trends?
• The restructuring of the student housing
market
1. Production of student HMO has halted
• Scale and pace of the process of landlords and
investors acquiring and converting family
housing to private rented student housing has
stagnated (Dowle, 2008)
– The effects of the credit crunch
– Buy-to-let products (Shaw, 2009).
– More stringent borrowing requirements for
obtaining buy-to-let mortgages
2. Destudentification
• Decrease of students and student
landlords in some areas – empty homes
and voids
– Small-scale landlords, many with buy-to-let
mortgages exiting the private rented market
– High number of buy-to-let repossessions
– Bankruptcy of some landlords and organisations
(Blakey, 2009).
– Increasing levels of rent arrears.
– Falling property prices (Atherton, 2008)
3. The use / effects of Article 4 Directions (A4D)?
• New HMO legislation (Coalition govt.)
– Removal of general permitted development rights
for conversion of dwelling house to HMO in areas
with problematic over-concentrations of HMO
– Notice period for designation of A4D – will
landlords and investors ‘rush into these areas’ and
produce HMO?
Article 4 / HMO Policy
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Barking & Dagenham
Basingstoke
Bath
Birmingham
Bournemouth
Brighton
Bristol
Canterbury
Charnwood
Durham
Exeter
Hastings
Hull
Leeds
Lincolnshire
Manchester
Milton Keynes
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Newcastle
Northampton
Nottingham
Oxford
Plymouth
Poole
Portsmouth
Preston
Reading
Richmond upon Thames
Sheffield
Southampton
Thanet (Margate)
Warwick
Welwyn Hatfield
West Lancashire (Ormskirk and Aughton)
York
5. New populations in studentified areas?
• Reorientation of student landlords to target
other social groups (e.g. professional lets) as
prospective tenants.
• Students are likely to experience intense
competition from other social groups (i.e.
first-time buyers) for accommodation in
private rented housing.
• +800,000 HMOs (CLG, 2011)
6. Slow-down of PBSA
• Prior to the economic recession - ‘potentially a further
78,000 bed spaces could be delivered to the market over
the next six years’.
• 36% growth of the PBSA sector witnessed between 20052008 (King Sturge, 2008)
• Downturn in the delivery of future developments of largescale, PBSA.
– general reluctance of financial institutions to provide capital for
PBSA
– unfavourable, lower loan-to-value ratios, down from 85-95% to
60-65% (Knight Frank, 2010).
• Some commercial providers have recently disposed of
existing PBSA assets to raise development capital.
7. Focused development of PBSA
• Commercial Director of Derwent Living:
– ‘We have targeted our growth plan around where
the main student demand is: either the capital
[London] or the Russell group [of elite research
universities]’ (quoted in Cooper, 2009).
8. PBSA in London
• Perceived shortfall of approximately 100,000
student bed spaces (Knight Frank, 2009;
London Evening Standard, 10/12/08).
• Knight Frank (2010) - only 3% of full-time
students in London have access to PBSA
9. On-campus ‘student villages’
• UPP (University Partnerships Programme), self-defined as
‘the UK’s leading provider of on-campus managed
university accommodation’, which has, to date, formed
alliances with 12 universities
• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
2007/08 database on the standards of university estates,
one in ten universities have at least 10% of their estate
identified as inoperable and at serious risk of breakdown
(Shepherd, 2010).
• £215 million Aston Student Village project in Birmingham,
£40 million Listerhills Student Village project in Bradford,
and the £30 million Newcastle Student Village
• 48,117 bed spaces in student villages in GB
Listerhills
10. Recruitment and retention
• College and University Business Officers
(CUBO) (2008):
– ‘Accommodation is a major factor influencing the
student living experience…. action in this area is
vital for universities looking to improve the
student living experience’ (p.8).
Conclusion
• Students are increasingly (socio-spatially) segregated
from other social groups
• Lower proportions of students within established
residential communities – less social-mixing?
• Issues of studentification persist (noise nuisance on
pedestrian routes)
• Lower levels of social interaction between students
and other social groups – what does this mean for
society?