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► Our House: Student Accomodation
02/03 Policy
Valid AULUC 2008
OUR HOUSE: STUDENT ACCOMMODATION
Proposed by: James MacColl [ULU Vice-President [Welfare & Student Affairs]
Seconded by: Mark Joven [ULU Postgraduate Students’ Officer], Martin Donkin [ULU LGB Officer], Susie Reilly, [ULU Students with Disabilities Officer], Dan Gibbons [ULU Medical Students’ Officer], Philip Lane [Institute of Education], Rhian Jones [Goldsmiths College], Charlotte Dawkins [ULU President], David Lundie [King’s College London SU], Eve Leung [ULU International Students’ Officer], Richard Horton [ULU Intercollegiate Halls Officer]
THIS UNION NOTES
1. That accommodation costs have significantly risen since student accommodation has been provided by profit-maximising private companies such as Jarvis, Unite and Shaftesbury Student Housing - the national average increase in such halls being 10.7% last year.
2. Higher Education Funding Council for England [HEFCE] regulations not permitting Higher Education Institutions [HEIs] to allow borrowing to account for more than 4% of their total income.
3. That the University and Colleges often refuse to guarantee places in halls to international students, resulting in many being homeless on arrival.
4. That student houses are not included in the Government’s initiative for registration, licensing and inspections of Houses of Multiple Occupancy [HMOs].
THIS UNION BELIEVES
1. Safe, affordable and comfortable housing is essential for students.
2. That under-funding of Higher Education has forced many HEIs to raise money by substantially increasing rent for student accommodation, selling off halls and flats to private companies, or entering into Public-Private Partnerships [PPPs] and Private Finance Initiatives [PFIs].
3. That pastoral care is essential in Halls, particularly for Freshers living away from home for the first time, including international students who have to adapt to a new environment; and that representative systems and social space in Halls are vital.
4. In private halls, such pastoral care, social space and representative systems are often absent.
5. That residents can find it difficult to make complaints to their College/Institute linking the quality of their accommodation with the effects on their academic work, due to lack of structures and contact between their College/Institute and Hall management.
6. There are viable alternatives to PFI, e.g. borrowing capital to improve/build halls or setting up co-operative schemes.
7. That private companies have been able to invest heavily in the student accommodation market, far beyond the resources of HEIs, which are bound by the aforementioned borrowing limit imposed on them by HEFCE.
8. That to improve standards in the private rented housing sector, the Government must introduce a mandatory licensing scheme for all multiple occupancy homes.
THIS UNION RESOLVES
1. To re-affirm commitment for the ‘Our House’ priority campaign.
2. To oppose Hall privatisation, whether wholly or through PPPs and PFIs, ‘unless such deals include maintaining rent rises at inflation only and agreements to maintain pastoral care’.
3. To mandate the Executive Committee to lobby the Government and relevant bodies for the following:
(i) To include student houses (i.e. in which all residents are registered full-time students) in the HMO licensing scheme.
(ii) To increase HEIs’ borrowing allowance so that investment in student accommodation can be increased.
(iii) To define students as ‘key workers’ eligible for cheap housing from local authorities.
4. To link the quality of student accommodation to the campaign for increased Government funding for Higher Education, giving specific reference whenever possible.
5. To mandate the Vice-President [Welfare & Student Affairs] to produce a pack giving information on Hall privatisation, PPPs and PFIs and advice on how to oppose their establishment, for circulation to relevant individuals and groups within the University.
PASSED: 28th April 2003