Edinburgh's student flat building boom: Can't we build affordable flats for families instead? – Susan Morrison

There’s an old van festering away on a wee bit of wasteland nearby.

Students will learn more about life living in real flats, rather than student accommodation (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

The tyres are flat and weeds are growing up through the engine. It might be dangerous. I suppose it should be towed, but I worry that moving the van might lead to someone spotting a derelict patch of real estate and by next Thursday a block of student flats would appear.

How many students do we actually have in the city? We seem to be building an awful lot of accommodation for them, and at some speed.

One minute there’s a little scrap of land and the next a big bland building with narrow windows like arrow slits in castles. This worries me.

If we try to storm these strongholds of studentdom, are they planning to defend themselves with archery?

When did we start housing students in purpose-built hutches, anyway?

Getting a flat used to be part of being a student, and whilst the seedy dump in Rising Damp was a caricature, it wasn’t far off the mark.

When I was at Stirling University, I started off on campus, but like everyone else who wanted to grow up, I moved into a flat in town. Luxury it was not. In winter, ice formed inside the windows and my flatmate and I decided to regard the mice as pets rather than pests.

We learned to pay our bills, like electricity and rates. We learned how to fix the highly eccentric hoover and keep the place tidy. We learned how to get along with neighbours.

All of these things turned out to be handy skills for a grown up, which we wouldn’t have acquired if we stayed on campus, and I fear these subjects are missing from the curriculum of the lads and lassies in these gleaming self-contained little worlds.

I think the little patch of scrub is safe for now. Property developers are closing in on the site of the old Caledonian Brewery. Bet there’s a student accommodation company sniffing about.

Just wondering though, do we really need to accommodate more students? Couldn’t we build affordable flats for families instead?