Students told to drop out amid housing crisis

AN SNP rent freeze is contributing to a student housing crisis in Scotland, landlords have warned, with a leading university urging students to drop out if they cannot find anywhere to live.

Students have said they are being forced to live in hostels and Airbnbs and sleep on friends’ couches in Edinburgh and Glasgow because of a “scandalous” lack of affordable housing in the cities.

Landlords claim the Scottish Government’s ban on them raising rents and evicting tenants until March 31 next year has compounded the shortage, with many warning they will remove their properties from the rental market.

The crisis could force students to live hours away from campus or in some cases abandon their studies altogether.

In a recent email circulated to students, Glasgow University “strongly advised” those without anywhere to live not to “complete enrolment” and added: “It may be more appropriate for you to suspend your studies or withdraw.”

John Blackwood, chief executive of the Scottish Association of Landlords, warned the situation “will increasingly become the norm” unless the Scottish Government invests in housing.