Should Scotland stop and ask better questions about student accommodation?

In a time of falling student numbers, planning applications for new student accommodation remain constant, with impacts on existing community services and infrastructure, including listed buildings which are at the core of place, and which celebrate community uniqueness.

Glasgow, for example, is planning to increase the number of student-only beds in the city to almost 40,000 impacting listed buildings in the West End and City Centre and causing the demolition of a community gym and snooker hall. This community disruption is happening against a backdrop of falling international student enrolment in Scotland. Applications from international students have fallen by 25% for taught post graduate programmes over the past few years. These are at the heart of Scotland’s Higher Education economy, substantially subsidising free tuition for Scottish students, provoking fundamental restructures and the withdrawal of courses across the sector.

This statement calls for a pause on any further applications for Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in order to ensure a complete understanding of the need to build more PBSA in Scotland.

The Scottish Civic Trust is concerned that insufficient consideration is being given to the communities that may be affected by these developments and to whether there is credible demand for the additional student beds.

Glasgow City Council’s latest monitoring note counts 21,655 student beds already operating in the city. A further 18,000 or so are in the pipeline, meaning built, under construction, consented or awaiting a decision. This would take total provision to almost 40,000. About 5,350 of those beds are in applications not yet determined. The council’s evidence base has previously suggested a need for around 6,000 more.

In Dundee, some residents are opposing the redevelopment of the vacant Keiller Centre site which would create a further 1,200 student beds at a time when Dundee City Council have declared a housing emergency, only 971 affordable homes have been build since 2021 and report have circulated that PBSA places are undersubscribed.

International student numbers, on whom these developments largely depend, are falling and may fall further. HESA Data from last year showed that “the sharpest fall amongst international students has occurred at post graduate taught level (masters courses), with a 25.7% sector average year-to-year drop between 22/23 and 23/24”. Students themselves are price-conscious and face rising rents whilst maintenance loans stagnate. Meanwhile, Glasgow still has a shortage of affordable housing for everyone else.

To be clear, Scottish Civic Trust is not opposed to an in increase in student housing if there is demand. We advocate for well-located and well-designed accommodation, especially when it brings neglected buildings back into use. The concern is not just the sheer number of student beds proposed but whether planning applications are giving sufficient weight to the needs of local communities and the impact these developments may have on them.

Again, in Glasgow, a pending application in the Woodlands area of the city proposes demolishing a Pure Gym and a snooker hall to build 314 student beds. Both are valuable amenities that local people use regularly. Their loss would be an example of community need and civic space not being prioritised in favour of additional PBSA development. The St Georges Studio building, which used to be the City Bakeries building, would also be demolished under the same plan, although facade retention could be an option. There is also a risk that areas once used by businesses and frequented by local people could begin to feel increasingly transient if local amenities are lost and PBSA developments operate below capacity.

Elsewhere in Woodlands, a former school building in a conservation area, is being converted to student flats rather than cleared. Reuse of that kind is what Scotland’s planning guidance (known as NPF4) encourages, though it still drew objections from the community council on heritage grounds.

Yet in planning terms, both are simply “student accommodation applications”, and each is judged on its own. We believe strongly that wider questions about civic space and the longevity of the accommodation should be asked in this process.

International student numbers have already fallen, causing proposed redundancies and restructures in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and in many other Scottish Higher Education Institutions, yet many of these developments depend on continued demand from overseas students. The Scottish Government's housing strategy guidance, published this year, expects councils to consider student accommodation within the context of the wider housing system. On 6 October, the First Minister told Parliament that it is for Glasgow City Council – and so every local planning authority - to apply that thinking to its decisions.

We're asking that Glasgow City Council and all local authorities do exactly that. For every application, including the proposed 314-bed development at St George's Road, and the 1,219 bed development at the Keiller Centre in Dundee, we want clear answers to the following questions.

1. If student demand falls, can the building become homes local people can afford?

2. Has reuse been fully explored under NPF4 Policy 9?

3. What is the neighbourhood losing to make way for PBSA?

If there are concerns or a lack of transparency to any of those three questions, the planning applications should not be approved.

A one-year pause on any new applications being received would give Scottish local authorities time to ask those questions of each individual application.

Scottish Civic Trust supports calls for a one-year pause on new PBSA applications except where there is demonstrated need. To expand on the above questions, we believe that in the meantime, every application should be tested against a clear set of community and planning considerations:

Test the need for Purpose Built Student Accommodation in and review the development pipeline. Does it match credible demand, given falling international recruitment?
Consider further the reuse of buildings before building new ones. NPF4 Policy 9 states that “demolition will be regarded as the least preferred option” where existing buildings could be reused. Has retaining and adapting existing buildings been seriously explored?
Properly assess the community setbacks for each application. Will local amenities, used by their respective communities be lost? Is the concentration of beds too high for a close-knit community in Glasgow, leading to transience felt in the design of the neighbourhood?
Better planning in the long term. If student demand drops suddenly, can these buildings be converted into something communities actually need, like housing? How long is each building designed to last, and what is the plan if it falls out of use? Most commercial buildings are designed to last 50 to 60 years, but often they can be lost in half that time.

We urge the Scottish Government to support a pause and for every local authority planning committee to apply the fullest scrutiny to every application in the meantime to ensure that civic spaces are not unnecessarily affected by an increase in PBSAs.