Student Accommodation News (3/8/11)

Here you can find the latest UK student accommodation news headlines for the week ending the 3rd August 2011:

New Student Accommodation in London Plans Accepted

1st August 2011: A huge new student halls development has been granted planning permission to be built in Camden, London. The new halls will provide both UK and international student accommodation for 563 students, from numerous universities throughout London. The development is part of Unite Group's plan to create 4,000 new beds in the Capital by 2014, with planning permission and funding havening already been secured for 1,900.

Richard Simpson, Unite's Development Director, said: "We expect London to continue to benefit from strong market fundamentals, with the supply/demand imbalance still a key factor, and we expect it to remain the most attractive and thereby resilient destination for UK and international students." Each year, thousands of international students come to study at top London universities and on English courses in London.

Big Money in Student Accommodation

2nd August 2011: New research shows that student accommodation is still very big business for building developers as student numbers continue to increase and outstrip the amount of accommodation currently available. The company CB Richard Ellis has revealed that property investors have already committed nearly £348 million in the sector since the beginning of 2011 and there is no sign of it letting up. Furthermore, as the number of foreign students increases, the need for accommodation for international students also increases.

Whilst Russell Group (a group of the top universities in UK) university towns traditionally attract most interest, other areas are being developed more and more as the disparity between students and beds increases. For example, in Glasgow there are nine times as many full time students as there are beds, and similarly, in Dundee seven times and in Brighton five. Therefore, today, developers are just as likely to invest in Dundee student accommodation, as they are in Manchester student homes.