OXFORD CORE STRATEGY – RESUMPTION OF HEARINGS – SEPTEMBER 2010
Submission by Professor K D Patterson on 20th August 2010
on behalf of the Headington and St Clements Group of Residents’ Associations
Please note that references relating to annotations 1 to 5 in the text are not available.
1.1. A major factor in Oxford’s housing crisis is the excessive number of full-time higher education students who live in privately owned or rented dwellings mainly in East and Central Oxford. Residents have become increasingly aware of the number of family homes that have been converted into multiple occupation and are hence lost to the local population.
1.2. Moreover, Oxford University (OU) and Oxford Brookes University (OBU) have purpose built student accommodation on sites that would be eminently suitable for affordable dwellings to ease the housing crisis in Oxford, particularly East Oxford. Some sites, which had been allocated in the local plan for residential housing, such as the Travis Perkins site in Chapel Street, East Oxford, have now received planning permission for student housing.
1.3. The balance between the needs of the local communities, especially their housing needs, and the expansion of OBU, has been disregarded in the present formulation of the Core Strategy. This matter needs to be redressed, before East Oxford and some parts of Headington become ‘ghettos’ of students.
2. Local Plan policies to address the problems identified in paragraph 1 have failed and we would like to urge you to address this issue in a more robust way in the Core Strategy policies that deal with student housing and education.
3. As set out in the Local Plan, OU and OBU are required to build dedicated student accommodation in order to free up family housing to alleviate the housing shortage in Oxford. These policies in the Local Plan state that planning permission will not be granted for planning applications for an increase in teaching and administrative floorspace unless the number of full-time students living in accommodation not provided by the university is less than 3000. (Local Plan Policies ED 6 and 8)
4. Since 2004 the two universities have been required to give the City Council detailed information about their student population including where their students live and how many live in private sector housing. This information is then reported in the Annual Monitoring Report. OBU, for example, reported that in 2008, 3,795 of their students lived in private sector dwellings, but also recently reported that this number is now less than 3,000. On numerous occasions local residents groups have stated that the data submitted by OBU is not plausible as they observe more and more residential houses being converted into shared housing occupied by students.
5.1. In the last 5 years the full-time university student population has remained more or less stable at about 30,000. The number of purpose built student residential units that have been completed over the last years is 1,000 (1). Another 2,000 are in the pipeline being either in the process of being built or have received planning permission (2).
5.2. But there does not seem to have been a corresponding increase in family housing caused by students moving out of private residential housing into purpose built accommodation. One would expect that the number of council tax exempt dwellings which are occupied by full time students would have dropped. On the contrary, in the last five years the number of council tax exempt properties occupied by students has increased by at least 100 (3). In 2008/9 this increase was 45 compared to the previous year (4)
5.3 In August 2010 resident groups commissioned the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) to analyse where OBU students live during term time. This analysis was carried out for the years 2007/8 and 2008/9. The data indicates that at least 4,535 full-time OBU students live in either their own residence (not parental/guardian home) or other rented accommodation; this number is considerably larger than the number OBU submitted to the 2009 Annual Monitoring Report. It is worrying that, compared with the previous academic year, the number of OBU students living in private accommodation seems to have gone up with a corresponding decline in the number of students living in institution-maintained property (5).
6. Despite a vast building programme of purpose built student accommodation, the number of full-time students who occupy family housing in Oxford continues to increase. The RAs therefore request consideration that the following policies are adopted in the Core Strategy:
6.1. Mechanisms are put in place that accurately monitor where students live; these mechanisms should include independent auditing of the numbers.
6.2. The local policy as to the limit on numbers of students in private accommodation should be enforced; and there should be visible enforcement measures to ensure that students live in the purpose built accommodation provided for them.
6.3. An estimate should be provided, at least on an annual basis, of the number of equivalent dwelling units, on some standard and well-defined basis, which have been displaced by the building of student accommodation.
K D Patterson
Headington and St Clements Residents’ Associations
Submission by Professor K D Patterson on 20th August 2010
on behalf of the Headington and St Clements Group of Residents’ Associations
Please note that references relating to annotations 1 to 5 in the text are not available.
1.1. A major factor in Oxford’s housing crisis is the excessive number of full-time higher education students who live in privately owned or rented dwellings mainly in East and Central Oxford. Residents have become increasingly aware of the number of family homes that have been converted into multiple occupation and are hence lost to the local population.
1.2. Moreover, Oxford University (OU) and Oxford Brookes University (OBU) have purpose built student accommodation on sites that would be eminently suitable for affordable dwellings to ease the housing crisis in Oxford, particularly East Oxford. Some sites, which had been allocated in the local plan for residential housing, such as the Travis Perkins site in Chapel Street, East Oxford, have now received planning permission for student housing.
1.3. The balance between the needs of the local communities, especially their housing needs, and the expansion of OBU, has been disregarded in the present formulation of the Core Strategy. This matter needs to be redressed, before East Oxford and some parts of Headington become ‘ghettos’ of students.
2. Local Plan policies to address the problems identified in paragraph 1 have failed and we would like to urge you to address this issue in a more robust way in the Core Strategy policies that deal with student housing and education.
3. As set out in the Local Plan, OU and OBU are required to build dedicated student accommodation in order to free up family housing to alleviate the housing shortage in Oxford. These policies in the Local Plan state that planning permission will not be granted for planning applications for an increase in teaching and administrative floorspace unless the number of full-time students living in accommodation not provided by the university is less than 3000. (Local Plan Policies ED 6 and 8)
4. Since 2004 the two universities have been required to give the City Council detailed information about their student population including where their students live and how many live in private sector housing. This information is then reported in the Annual Monitoring Report. OBU, for example, reported that in 2008, 3,795 of their students lived in private sector dwellings, but also recently reported that this number is now less than 3,000. On numerous occasions local residents groups have stated that the data submitted by OBU is not plausible as they observe more and more residential houses being converted into shared housing occupied by students.
5.1. In the last 5 years the full-time university student population has remained more or less stable at about 30,000. The number of purpose built student residential units that have been completed over the last years is 1,000 (1). Another 2,000 are in the pipeline being either in the process of being built or have received planning permission (2).
5.2. But there does not seem to have been a corresponding increase in family housing caused by students moving out of private residential housing into purpose built accommodation. One would expect that the number of council tax exempt dwellings which are occupied by full time students would have dropped. On the contrary, in the last five years the number of council tax exempt properties occupied by students has increased by at least 100 (3). In 2008/9 this increase was 45 compared to the previous year (4)
5.3 In August 2010 resident groups commissioned the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) to analyse where OBU students live during term time. This analysis was carried out for the years 2007/8 and 2008/9. The data indicates that at least 4,535 full-time OBU students live in either their own residence (not parental/guardian home) or other rented accommodation; this number is considerably larger than the number OBU submitted to the 2009 Annual Monitoring Report. It is worrying that, compared with the previous academic year, the number of OBU students living in private accommodation seems to have gone up with a corresponding decline in the number of students living in institution-maintained property (5).
6. Despite a vast building programme of purpose built student accommodation, the number of full-time students who occupy family housing in Oxford continues to increase. The RAs therefore request consideration that the following policies are adopted in the Core Strategy:
6.1. Mechanisms are put in place that accurately monitor where students live; these mechanisms should include independent auditing of the numbers.
6.2. The local policy as to the limit on numbers of students in private accommodation should be enforced; and there should be visible enforcement measures to ensure that students live in the purpose built accommodation provided for them.
6.3. An estimate should be provided, at least on an annual basis, of the number of equivalent dwelling units, on some standard and well-defined basis, which have been displaced by the building of student accommodation.
K D Patterson
Headington and St Clements Residents’ Associations