FLATS LIE EMPTY AS COVID-19 IMPACTS STUDENT MARKET
Now owners want to rent to non-students Mcinnes
A NEW student flats complex is lying half empty after tenants pulled out because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now Primus Alliance Newcastle Ltd has applied for permission to rent out some of the 211 studio rooms to nonstudents on a temporary basis.
Known as The Met, the apartment block was built on the former Metropolis nightclub site in the Midway, Newcastle. Its prime market is postgraduate students, particularly those from Keele University, and overseas students.
But following the pandemic, the UK has suffered a drop in international students from areas such as the Far East. And some master’s degree students who can learn online are choosing to stay at home instead.
Duncan Melville, director of the specialist student accommodation provider, said they were facing ‘unprecedented dark and gloomy times’ and were looking to find a short-term solution.
In a letter to Newcastle Borough Council, he added: “We do not submit this application lightly. Indeed, we did not want to submit it. It has been submitted solely in response to the critical impact Covid-19 has had on our target student market.”
He highlighted how they were seeing almost as many tenancy withdrawals as new lettings. Around 50 per cent of the flats are currently occupied.
If different types of tenants are allowed, the company believes it can attract hospital staff and other key workers, who may have to isolate from their families if a second coronavirus wave hits.
“We can structure rooms to support ‘bubbles’ or clusters of workers,” said Mr Melville.
Each studio apartment has its own kitchenette, shower, TV and highspeed internet access. Mail can be delivered to the flat door and laundry collections can be booked through a mobile app.
Now the council’s planning committee is being recommended to approve the temporary variation of the planning condition, which stipulates the flats can only be rented out by students.
If councillors agree at today’s meeting, the relaxation in rules would apply until July 31, 2022.
But concerns have been raised about what would happen if there are non-students as sitting tenants when this deadline arrives. The student-only planning condition was made because the company was exempt from affordable housing requirements.
The Met is one of several new student accommodation developments across Newcastle town centre.
But while some of them have proved successful, one of the projects is still lying half built three years after it was supposed to have opened.
The original developer of the Sky Building, next to Jubilee2, ran out of money.