‘We need social housing, not more student hostels’
New restrictions on developers as residents fear being swamped
Published: 28 May 2010
by PETER GRUNER
THE new head of Islington’s anti-crime police liaison committee, Jan Tucker, added her voice this week to the growing alarm about a student “invasion” that threatens to “swamp” the borough.
Ms Tucker, chairwoman of the Islington Community Safety Board, spoke out amid reports that student accommodation across the borough was reaching saturation point.
With Islington having the second highest amount of college accommodation in London after Camden, the council’s new Labour administration announced this week that it would restrict all new purpose-built student flats to just two areas.
They are Holloway Road, where the London Metropolitan University is mainly based, and
the City University’s Northampton Square.
Ms Tucker said: “The problem is that they have been building student hostels all over the borough. That’s all very well but they are not providing any leisure facilities for the young people. The students often end up partying on the streets.
“This is at a time when we already have more people than ever drinking on the streets and causing a nuisance to neighbours.”
Members of the committee asked why there was so much student accommodation in the borough when there were 13,000 people on Islington Council’s housing waiting list.
Ms Tucker added: “We’re not a university city like Oxford or Cambridge. We desperately need social housing.”
The number of purpose-built student rooms in Islington is set to reach almost 8,000 within the next few years – meaning nearly a third of 18 to 24-year-olds living in the borough will be students.
More than 1,000 purpose-built student rooms have been built in Islington since 2008 on top of 4,000 existing rooms.
Another 2,650 are being built or are in the pipeline.
The council planning figures do not include the thousands of students living in private rented accommodation across the borough.
Islington’s biggest student development is the 840-room Nido building, in Pentonville Road, Islington, which charges up to £295 a week for a single studio.
Paul Convery, executive member for regeneration, said the council will be reviewing the previous administration’s core strategy on housing. “We intend to restrict all purpose built student housing to areas close to the two universities, London Met and City.
“Anything beyond that won’t get planning permission.
“Every London borough should be contributing to student accommodation. We seem to be contributing an awful lot more than the others.”