Rise in student accommodation
similar eating habits and similar incomes is going to have an impact on the people and services already there.
According to Cardiff University housing lecturer Dr Mackie, the developments also present a potential opportunity to create more affordable housing.
He said: “We’ve seen a process of ‘studentification’ in Cardiff.
“This is where students have moved into parts of the city such as Cathays and locals have been negatively affected. Locals either can’t afford to stay because of the higher rents that students can pay or locals will remain and will see their communities change, with the arrival of different shops and bars and an increase in noise and rubbish.
“There is definitely a place for the high rise provision alongside traditional houses.
“It would be a positive development to see fewer students occupying the terraced Victorian housing in places like Cathays. This would create more diverse communities.
“The demand for housing in Cardiff has not been met. Things need to be done to alleviate supply pressure.
“An increase in high rise student accommodation would help to alleviate pressures on Cardiff’s private rental market.” Critics are less happy. The first criticism is that despite their “luxury” branding many of these buildings around the UK are in fact built with a “pile ’em high” mentality and represent a building regulations box ticking exercise.
The architecture and design critic at the Guardian, Oliver Wainwright, said: “Blunt cliff-faces of tiny square windows, piled as high as regulations allow, like stacks of construction-site cabins the builders forgot to remove.
“Sometimes topped with a jaunty quiff, or dressed in a lurid harlequin costume as if to scream ‘Youth!’: these Goliaths are sprouting across Britain, lumbering into its towns and cities like container ships run aground.
“This urban disease of meanminded, pile ’em-high cells is not a new government prison programme, but actually purpose-built student accommodation.”
The National Union of Students (NUS) has been particularly scathing about both the cost of private rents and the support offered by providers.
The union’s vice-president for Higher Education, Amatey Doku, described PBSA as “out of touch” and “deeply concerning”.
“We know that many students don’t feel that this accommodation offers value for money, we know that private providers are far less likely to offer any kind of support to their student residents and we have seen absolutely no evidence to suggest that students want this kind of expensive accommodation.
“We believe universities should not be outsourcing their duty to provide affordable housing options for students, as where a student lives is a core part of their experience.” As developers battle to turn every spare piece of space in Cardiff city centre into a PBSA cash cow, it begs the question if a bubble is building.
There are legitimate fears that if there is a fall in international students or student preferences change there could be issues similar to that of Cardiff Bay in 2008 when hundreds of flats stayed dormant after the financial crash with no-one willing or able to pay the rents and service charges.
Most of Cardiff’s higher education institutions are reserving judgement on the risk of this happening until they know what impact Brexit will have on student numbers.
A Cardiff University spokesman said: “With much uncertainty ahead of us, it is too early to anticipate how our student numbers are likely to be impacted by the UK’s departure from the European Union.”
Many commentators and people in the PBSA sector believe that it is now peaking.
Danielle Cullen, of StudentTenant. com, said: “Personally I feel that the purpose-built or ‘private-hall’ market is now reaching its peak. Over the last five years or so the growth of PBSA has been enormous.
“The concept of flash, en-suite, ‘hotel style’ rooms was hugely sought after in the beginning, with many private investors also wanting a piece of the pie as ‘student pods’ were sold individually.
“In recent years however, in some cities it’s becoming overcrowded with many providers still with vacant rooms.”
She has expressed concerns that smaller cities like Cardiff will suffer more than places like London if numbers drop significantly.
Developer Mr Watkin Jones still sees a positive outlook even if the numbers of international students nationally goes down.
He said: “We remain positive about the outlook for student accommodation in Cardiff, this is primarily underpinned by the multiple strong and popular higher education institutions and universities in the city and the overall attractiveness of Cardiff as a city for students.
“Cardiff was a relative late starter with regards student accommodation and although a number of new developments are now coming forward the supply demand dynamics are still strong compared to many of the UK’s University cities.”
There is one consequence of Brexit that he believes will have a positive effect on demand for private rents and that is the fall in the value of the pound.
Mr Jones said: “Whilst the potential impacts of Brexit are still relatively unclear there is still significant strength and demand for UK and Cardiff higher education, there remains significant international demand for university places in the UK and the current decline of the pound means there is an attractive currency position for international students.” According to Cardiff council, which has been incredibly supportive of projects such as this, systems are in place for a change of use.
A spokesman for Cardiff council said: “All cities experience changes in market conditions and wider economic factors as time progresses. These are often reflected in the way the use of buildings change over time.
“The planning system allows buildings to change in use through subsequent planning applications at a later date and student accommodation can be adapted to other uses.” They would not be suitable for families and provide significantly less space than even a two-up-two-down terrace.
Cardiff University’s Peter Mackie still believes they could be converted into social housing.
He said: “The demand for housing in Cardiff has not been met. Speaking in hypotheticals, if there was a fall in student numbers or student preferences changed, then these high rise flats could be turned into affordable housing, or made available to other young people currently struggling to access the private rental market.
“I certainly see a long-term place for this form of accommodation in the Cardiff housing market.” They are not hidden away and some will be literally the biggest buildings in the country. If the bubble does burst, what happen to these city centre blocks? Do they sit dormant or become slums for those who can’t afford to get on the housing ladder?
Perhaps they are everything that developers and planning committees have said they are – a modern and forward thinking way of managing the Welsh capital’s excess student population for which the worst case scenario is that they are converted to tackle the housing crisis.
But if that is so, is there a risk that flats built with lower space, light and standards requirements that would be in place for social housing become rundown, substandard, loathed housing of the future?