Student accommodation: New Edinburgh developments could face requirement to provide 35 per cent affordable flats
Edinburgh could follow example of London Mayor Sadiq Khan
New student accommodation projects in Edinburgh could in future be required to provide more than a third of the bedspaces at affordable prices.
The city council agreed officials would produce a briefing on how an affordable tenure policy for student accommodation could be established on a similar basis to one introduced by London mayor Sadiq Khan, where all new Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) developments must contain at least 35 per cent "affordable student accommodation", rising to 50 per cent if the development is on public sector land or industrial land.
Officials will look at the idea as part of ongoing work preparing Edinburgh's next City Plan, but also consider whether such a policy could be implemented before then.
The move was put forward at Thursday’s full council meeting by SNP councillor Danny Aston, who said the Capital had a student housing affordability crisis. He said many students were homeless and a recent study showed that 16 per cent of students started the academic year without anywhere to live.
"We're proposing that, by analogy with the affordable housing policy we implement on mainstream residential housing, that new PBSA developments should also be subject to a 35 per cent requirement for affordable student tenure to help deal with the affordability crisis facing students."
Tenants union Living Rent staged a demonstration outside the City Chambers ahead of the meeting in support of Cllr Aston's motion.
And at the meeting, student Emily Lallemand, a member of Living Rent, told councillors that PBSA developments did not work for students and pushed up rents for everyone.
She said: "While developers and the council alike have justified PBSA to cater for student needs and the growing number of students in the city, we have at the same time seen a rapid increase in rates of student homelessness."
She said research showed that in 2022 one in five students in Edinburgh were homeless at the start of the academic year. And although there had been a "moderate" decrease in student homelessness since then, many students still faced severe anxiety about their housing situation, while beds lay empty in PBSAs.
Ms Lallemand said: "We cannot afford to pay for PBSA flats. The current average charge for one room in a PBSA is £1,200 per calendar month but it can get up to £1,800.
"In contrast the maximum funding a student could receive from either Student Awards Agency Scotland or from Student Finance England is between £790 and £900 per month and the minimum wage for under-21s in £10 an hour. This housing is simply not affordable.
"If Edinburgh needs more student accommodation, we need more affordable student accommodation."
She said the high rents in PBSAs also contributed directly to rising rents both for students and for everyone else. "Rents have increased by twice the rate of inflation since 2010 in Edinburgh."
Ms Lallemand said PBSA bedspaces in Edinburgh had more than doubled over the past 20 years. “In 2005, there were 7,350 bedspaces within PBSAs, which rose to 22,310 in 2024. Now there are about 58 PBSAs in Edinburgh, with 1,958 more bedspaces in the pipeline.”
Cllr Aston also argued that PBSAs should pay business rates. “PBSA is a business undertaking, the operators are making very large profit margins. Almost every other business that holds premises is subject to pay business rates, so isn’t it fair that PBSA should be as well?”
It was agreed the council should write to the Scottish Government, urging them to make PBSA developments liable for business rates.