Student flats approved in Bristol to combat lack of housing

Plans for student flats to be built on an old car site have been approved despite their distance from university buildings.

Accommodation for students has been approved in Bedminster, Bristol, with developers gaining permission to build a 49-bed block of flats on the site of an old car workshop.

Founded in 1976, car dealership Paramount Cars is due to be abolished to provide space for the student homes. The three-storey building will be located at least a 30-minute walk from the closet university campus.

Councillors on Bristol’s development control A committee granted permission for this project last year, claiming the new development would take the pressure off family homes getting converted into student shared houses.

However, the decision to build new student homes was split. Some councillors believed more family properties should be constructed to address the current housing crisis that has spawned from the rising cost-of-living.

Cllr Tom Hathway said: ‘There’s clearly a problem with endless university expansion and it tickles me when developers come to us and say, ‘we’re building student accommodation to help with the housing crisis.’

‘The housing crisis we’ve got is that there aren’t enough family and affordable homes.’

Although Cllr Ed Plowden said: ‘There’s clear evidence that a lack of student accommodation can affect housing availability across the city, so this is therefore justified.

‘It’s good that we’re not having an over-concentration of student accommodation in certain areas and dispersing it across the city is quite a good thing.’

Towards the end of 2022 other areas of the UK were facing student housing crisis’. In Manchester, university students were struggling to find places to live as institutions across the city had more students than homes available.

Research displayed students were offered £2K to give up their room in halls of residence.

Photo by William Chang