New types of student accommodation, including smaller “pod-sized” rooms of just 10 square metres, could help solve the UK’s student housing crisis and reduce rents by up to 30 per cent, according to a new paper.
The proposals by Martin Blakey, former chief executive of the student housing charity Unipol, are designed to convince universities to build a lower-cost accommodation option for less well-off students.
Higher interest rates and increased regulation are affecting the student housing market, while the small uplift in the maximum maintenance loan in England will not keep up with rising rental prices.
Mr Blakey says in the paper that the current model of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) is “inherently high-cost”, so a less expensive model needs to be developed with a lower level of servicing and consumer expectations.
