Introduction
Small, rural, and quaint. These are some of the common words used to describe the picturesque town of St Andrews. Much like some of the town’s £800/month rooms being described as ‘cosy’, these adjectives are not working in favour of some students. The town’s relative isolation really means that if you are not able to secure housing, then commuting and finding a place to work becomes much harder than in a big city. Your best bets are Guardbridge, Cupar, or more commonly Dundee. St Andrews has for the second time in a row ranked the number one university in the UK. This is partly due to having one of the best student satisfactions out of any university (Complete University Guide, 2023). However, for the 350 students who reportedly went into last academic year without housing (Gatrell, 2022), I’m sure satisfaction was low. At university, housing is not just a place to sleep and commute from as it is after university. It is pivotal to making friends and affects the person in every aspect of university life. It also becomes an issue of safety when you have students waiting at bus-stops in the cold at night. It can eliminate lower income students due to the necessity of buying bus, train or taxi fares or purchase of a car every time they want to return home. This adds monumental amounts onto the cost of an academic year. Academic pressures will be felt due to the time spent commuting; this adds up to many hours every semester for students forced to live in Dundee.
In this report I aim to expose the extent of the issues surrounding housing in St Andrews. As I aim to speak to the community, I will first explain my positionality, why the community should listen to me and my personal experiences in the matter. I will then go on to explain what the effects on students are and reasons for these effects, and finally I will propose solutions to the community.
Positionality
I am a third-year student studying economics and sustainable development at the university. This gives me a unique perspective of the situation compared to larger companies. My time at the university has not been without its struggles and along with my fellow students, securing suitable and affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues. I understand the anxieties involved in searching and getting repeatedly rejected from housing. I understand the financial burden of being forced between a house out of your budget, or a house out of your town. I understand the social strains that the limited variability of housing has on friendship groups that are often separated by circumstance. My own background is not a high-income one and so I, alongside many others have had to overcome financial challenges students at other universities have not and am aware of the effects this has on academic performance, socialising, and the university experience as a whole. Given my studies of economics and sustainable development, I bring a unique blend of insight to the table. I strongly believe that a sustainable and economically viable solution to the problem is necessary to overcome it. Therefore, I am writing this report not only as a concerned student, but as someone who is well equipped to propose meaningful and effective suggestions to reduce the effects of this crisis.
Background and Context of Challenges
One of the most central problems with housing in St Andrews is housing prices and lack of affordable housing. There are many reasons for this so to keep it simple the first is high demand and low supply of housing. A large part of the increased demand is the student population, the fact that the university is so highly rated means that there is always a huge surplus of applications. This means the town is always at capacity for students and in the case of 2022, too many students were accepted due to artificially inflated grades following the COVID-19 pandemic. This can be seen country wide with a 28% leap in students securing places at higher tariff universities (UCAS, 2021). This means that for at least 4 years there is a much larger cohort. Tourism is also a heavy driver of demand. The town is globally known as the home of golf, with the sport having originated here in 1764. This can lead to focus on short term rentals like Airbnb rather than long term ones, with over 350 flats currently licensed for short term lets in St Andrews. (Gatrell, 2022). The town frequently hosts large scale golfing events and tournaments such as the Alfred Dunhill links championship which runs every year, as well as the Open Championship which runs every five years. Last year, the Open led to the town’s usual population of 17,000 swelling to a staggering 290,000 (The Open, 2022). If supply and demand was unbalanced before it hit new extremes during this season. This especially became problematic for students and locals who needed stable long term housing contracts. By renting seasonally landlords can in some cases earn more renting for a few weeks than a whole academic year with students, with some homeowners charging £31,678 for the week. This is 12 times higher than it is listed at a fortnight later (Warrender, 2021). Apart from golf, the town is renowned as being a beautiful and deeply historical town, which leads to the purchase of second homes. There are few places that offer the same combination of these factors.
Given all this one might think the easy solution would be increasing the supply of houses. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as this. Many areas of the town are protected from further development as they hold significant cultural and historical importance.
Map showing areas of conservation in St Andrews (Fife Council, 2023)
On top of this local planning and zoning regulations to protect heritage and character limit, height, density, and overall character of buildings. The town is also forced to only expand further from the fringes of the town as the town centre is on the seafront. This disincentivises new developments as high demand areas are rare. A largescale project is currently also limited by infrastructure. New water, sewage and road development would need to take place to accommodate large influxes of people.
Another reason for high prices is investment and speculation. Speculators and investors will often pay premium prices for houses they believe they will be able to sell for much higher in the future or earn substantial rental income. This leads to artificial price inflation. The problems associated with this are twofold when you consider many properties bought for investment remain empty or underutilised for extended periods of time, effectively taking houses out of the market. Ultimately this led to “636 homes in St Andrews being classed as “empty”, or 10.5% of the housing stock in the town,” (Smith 2018).
One of the key reasons for a shortage of affordable housing for students is Fife council’s 2018 decision to put a cap on the amount of HMO licenses in St Andrew (Fife Housing Partnership, 2022). HMO stands for housing in multiple occupancy and is a type of license that allows for a house to be shared between three or more unrelated occupants. Without this license, landlords are limited to a maximum of two students, assuming they are unrelated. The over-provision policy aimed to prevent any further growth had the intended effect of preventing a swelling student population from pushing middle to low income earning locals out of town, effectively gentrifying it. This however has had the unintended consequence of creating a locked room scenario where students still rented non-HMO properties but paid for the vacant rooms as well. This has led to many houses in St Andrews having rooms that are vacant all year round which is frustrating for students who have been forced to commute from Dundee and even Edinburgh due to a lack of rooms. It also means that the prices being paid in households with empty rooms are extortionate. In some cases, this is the only way that students can guarantee a place to live. The HMO cap has also not led to an increase in middle to low-income residents in the town centre.
However, the HMO caps are not new, they have been in place since 2019. As the rates of students without homes has increased so dramatically in the last couple years, there must be other drivers. One reason is the universities fault directly by letting in more students than the town was able to house. The student body was not supposed to reach 10,000 until 2025 (St Andrews, 2020), however by 2020 this number was reached and by 2021 the student body had grown to 10,425 (University of St Andrews:2). This can be partly attributed to the inflation of A level grades, however the university also admitted 20 times more postgraduates than the year prior – students who weren’t affected by inflated A level grades.
On top of accepting an increased number of students, the university recently demolished Albany Park, one of the few affordable accommodations for students in St Andrews. The accommodation was an ageing complex which previously housed 350 students. However, due to concerns about health and safety the accommodation was demolished to construct a new larger one with original plans to house 960 students. This sounds positive and will no doubt be a welcome blessing to students in need of housing when it is finished, however it isn’t finished and won’t be for some time. In fact, the university has had to pause construction completely in order to negotiate price issues stemming from high inflation. Given that the University had nearly 50 years to devise replacement plans for Albany Park, it is unacceptable that they allowed such a significant gap between the demolition of one accommodation and the construction of another. Additionally, due to rising costs the accommodation will now only house 710 students. With only 30% of them being lower-cost housing, the university would be providing 213 cheaper rooms instead of the initially planned 960. (VanReenen, 2023). This is better than nothing and hopefully the increase in supply of high-cost rooms will take some pressure off the private market, lowering costs.
Potential Solutions
One solution would be the implementation of rent caps within the town to ensure that prices do not inflate excessively. Rent caps would also prevent the extortionate short-term inflation of rent during events such as the open championship golf tournament, where some letting agents such as Lawson & Thompson, clauses were added that allowed rent to be increased to £7000 for the month of July (Jones, 2022). This illegal move effectively forced students to leave during peak times of the year. In coordination with rent caps, the council could seek to regulate the laws surrounding short term lets. This was explored in a report by Dutch bank ING, stating that “Airbnb drives up real estate prices, because people are prepared to pay more for a flat when they can make extra money by renting it out,” and that “Families with children are leaving this city because they can’t afford to live in the good areas” (van der Zee, 2016). In Amsterdam, by limiting the number of days you can rent out a full house to 30 days they managed to cut short term rentals from “39 per cent in 2015 to only 5 per cent in 2020” (Hübscher et al., 2022). A similar approach could work in St Andrews. By adopting a similar moratorium on short-term lettings for student accommodations in St Andrews, the town can ensure that the influx of tourists does not compromise the housing needs of its student population, a demographic that often grapples with limited budget constraints and specific location needs. Such a move can ensure that students have a stable living environment throughout the duration of their course. However, it is not solely up to the council to fix this problem. The university has a lot of power to alleviate the problem itself. Given the surge in short-term lets, especially around peak tourist seasons, a temporary restriction could be placed on turning student accommodations into holiday rentals. This would prevent the displacement of students during their academic terms and ensure housing security.
A long-term viable solution would be the university expanding upon university-managed accommodation. A quick solution was found with the securing of 140 extra rooms in the Old Mill Student Residences in Dundee (Fitzpatrick, 2022), but a survey carried out by CASH found that 100% of students surveyed from the accommodation would rather live in St Andrews and 100% also claimed there were academic consequences as a direct result of the distance to the university (CASH, 2022). Whilst the Old Mill accommodation is certainly better than nothing, evidently more can be done. Repurposing existing structures is often more cost-effective and faster than constructing new buildings from scratch. It can also be more sustainable, as it uses fewer raw materials and generates less construction waste (Merlino, 2018).
This has worked in the case of UCLA’s Community Housing project which according to the university means “UCLA will become the first and only University of California campus to guarantee housing for four years to first-year students and two years for transfer students” (LA Times, 2022) Converting different types of vacant properties (e.g., houses, flats, old commercial properties) can lead to a diverse range of accommodation options. This diversity can cater to various student preferences and budgets. Retrofitting and repurposing old buildings can be more environmentally friendly than demolition and new construction. This approach can align with sustainability goals and reduce the carbon footprint associated with new building projects. If these properties are located centrally or near key facilities, it might be the only option for building new accommodation whilst reducing the need for car travel, promoting walking, cycling, or public transport among students, as opposed to building more accommodations further out of town such as Fife Park. It could also mean building is approved for those wanting luxury flats further out in the greenbelt, where development is usually refused. This can be seen with the development of 27 new flats where Craigtown hospital used to be (Warrender, 2023).
Student also must be made able to help themselves through promoting awareness and advocacy amongst the population. This is especially the case at St Andrews due to an unusually high 45% of students being international, (University of St Andrews, 2019) who are more likely to be unaware of the rules and laws. By educating students on their rights, housing options, and available resources awareness can be raised with both students and stakeholders about the scale of the crisis and the necessity for community involvement. Usually, students would be able to refer to the student legal clinic however this was closed in 2020 citing COVID as the reason. Fortunately, there were other organisations that stepped in such as CASH, the Student Union’s Advocacy and LivingRent. (Jones, 2022) A step towards this would be to reopen the student legal clinic which allowed students to become aware of their legal rights in relation to housing and other issues. The impact of COVID should n longer serve as an excuse, as this vital service can be continued remotely or by phone. The demand for the service did not disappear with the pandemic.
An easy step the university can take is to increase their communication and accountability surrounding housing. There have been frequent reports of long periods of time without any updates from the university and checking Facebook pages for updates becomes part of daily routine. The university and the town have a symbiotic relationship. The prosperity and wellbeing of one affects the other. By adopting a proactive stance against the housing crisis, the university is not only helping it’s students, but is also benefitting local residents and businesses and the quality of life in the town. If the University of St Andrews fails to amplify its communication and accountability regarding this crisis, it risks not only its reputation and student welfare but also the harmony and prosperity of the town itself. It’s time for a united front, where the esteemed institution and the town come together to forge a sustainable future.
Unlike conventional methods, where students had to physically scout for available housing options or rely on word-of-mouth, digital platforms like ‘Get a Room St Andrews’ provide instant access to a plethora of listings. Whether it’s a shared apartment or an individual room, students can increase their chances of finding accommodation and connect with the entire student body from their mobile phone. The dynamic nature of these platforms allows for immediate updates on availability. If a room gets occupied, the listing can be promptly marked as ‘taken’, reducing the chances of redundancy. Additionally, the integrated messaging feature enables direct communication between landlords and prospective tenants, streamlining the entire process. One of the significant advantages of such platforms is the community-driven aspect. Fellow students often leave reviews or comments on listings, helping peers make informed decisions. This transparency fosters trust and reduces the likelihood of potential housing scams. While informal Facebook groups have their advantages, there’s potential in developing a more structured online platform dedicated to St Andrews’ housing needs. Such formal networks could offer features like verified landlord profiles, a standardized lease agreement template, and even integration with payment gateways for deposit and rent transactions. This not only ensures security but also speeds up the matching process. The main aim of these platforms is to efficiently connect tenants, and those who are in search of tenants. Given the importance of housing for its student community, the University of St Andrews could consider endorsing or collaborating with such platforms. This would further legitimize the network and potentially integrate it with the university’s existing student services.
Conclusion
The housing crisis in St. Andrews deeply affects the student experience, with many facing uncertainties regarding their accommodation each year. This not only has an impact on their academics, but also leads to significant social and safety concerns. For a university that seems to hold itself in such high esteem, these issues cannot be overlooked. In order to address the housing issues, a collective effort is required from the St. Andrews community, encompassing both the university administration and the students. Enhanced communication is crucial. The university should adopt a transparent and consistent dialogue with students about housing opportunities, deadlines, and advice. Regular updates through email or via the website that include both students and landlords can build trust and collaboration. Beyond communication, there’s a need to explore alternative housing solutions. In tandem with local developers and the council, the university could consider innovative housing approaches, such as modular housing, particularly during high-demand periods. Furthermore, the role of local residents cannot be emphasized enough. They have the potential to alleviate some of the strain by offering spare rooms, annexes, or properties specifically for student rentals. The university must see that the digital age also offers unique solutions to the housing crisis. Platforms like ‘Get a Room St Andrews’ must be developed and formalised by the university. Yet even as we look towards the university for answers, we must not underestimate the effectiveness of grassroots projects such as CHAS or peaceful protests. The community must come together and implement the solutions that can be achieved.
Reference List
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