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| Photograph Mae Rohnni |
We
think Sanford may have been Britain's first student housing co-op (check out our retro videos),
but all power to this group of students for taking housing into their
own hands! All power to co-ops!
The
average cost of renting as a student in the UK is now
£68.70 a week
according to Accommodation for Students,
which analysed the costs of 100,000 student properties in 77 cities.
Soaring rents are not just the hallmark of the private rented sector;
the average cost of student accommodation within university halls of
residence has
doubled in the last 10 years,
rising from £59.77 to £117.67 a week.
The
average rent for student accommodation in Birmingham is approximately
£61, but to live close to the university's facilities many students
choose to pay a higher rent between £80 and £90. But the rise isn't
reflected in the quality of accommodation.
"Some
of the houses are dumps," says Sean Farmelo, a 21-year-old
philosophy student at Birmingham University. "Weekly rent prices
are now going up by about £5 each year and that is because most of
the houses are lived in by students. Students have been taken for
cash cows and no one has done anything about it."
Farmelo
and his friends are behind what will soon become the UK's first
student housing
co-operative. They have secured £550,000 in finance
that will go towards purchasing two five-bedroom houses in Selly Oak
which will remain permanently available to student members of the
co-operative.
Farmelo
had been involved in co-operative schemes before and had received an
£8,000 loan from the National Lottery to set up a
bicycle co-op in Birmingham,
as he lives in a cheaper part of town and cycles in to lectures to
avoid the higher rent charged around the university.
Co-operative
living promised a way to make a student house a real home, protect
residents from rogue landlords and lettings agents as well as making
a helpful saving on rent. But when the idea began to take shape, the
amount of money they realised it could save took the group by
surprise.
With
the help of a computer programme provided by Birmingham Co-operative
Housing Services (BCHS) - the organisation that has provided the
£550,000 loan needed to purchase the properties - they calculated
how much rent they would need to pay each week. "We started
putting in figures like £60, which would have been cheap anyway, and
there was loads of surplus," says Farmelo. "Then we put in
£50 and there was still a lot of surplus. Even at £40 there was
still quite a lot. We went down to £38, but we thought that was
ridiculously cheap."
The
figure has not been finalised yet, but Farmelo says they are looking
at around £40 a week, which includes management fees, a maintenence
allowance and accounts for a full refurbishment every 15 years. And
the savings the co-op will bring could not come at a better time.
"Tuition
fees have just gone up and maintenance loans aren't getting any
bigger," Farmelo says. "I pay more on my rent this year
than I get in maintanance loans. It's really squeezing a lot of
people out of education."
The
speed at which the idea became a reality also surprised the group. "I
thought they would say this is a good idea, but we're not able to
give you £550,000 that quickly," admits Farmelo. "But
apparently they are."
BCHS
is not normally in the habit of handing out half a million pounds to
undergraduates. "The important thing is that the group of
students we're working with clearly have experience working with
co-operative enterprises," says director Carl Taylor.
The
group had hoped to get funding from a co-operative lender to purchase
the homes, but without a record of property
management they initially found funding difficult to secure. However
BCHS was convinced by the model, and when the co-op system has been
tested the group intends to reapply for funding and purchase the
properties outright.
With
more than 18,000 students paying between £60 and £160 a week to
live close to the university, there is plenty of potential for
growth. "At the moment our issue is meeting the excessive
demand, which we can't ever hope to do," says Taylor.
With
the battle over tuition fees lost, extortionate housing prices could
be the next target for those tired of seeing the cost of a higher
education in England increase every year.
Farmelo
says that it shouldn't be left to individuals to look for the
solutions. "This is what student unions should be doing. As a
student, you only spend your money on tuition and housing, with a
little bit left over for food and a pint. Unions only really focus on
things such as safety and community spirit, which obviously they
should be doing, but it's like hiding under a shell and ignoring the
fact that students are getting ripped off every year."
Two
houses with a combined 10 bedrooms may be a humble beginning to the
student
housing
co-operative movement but Farmelo believes his model - and the UK
student housing
network
he intends to establish - could eventually help replicate the more
established large-scale student housing co-operatives found in
American universities.
"I
did this in my spare time, and what I want to do is make it available
to a lot more students," he says. "A couple of years down
the line you can really start tapping real finance, such as pension
funds and larger loans, to buy halls that will house hundreds of
students. It's a real possibility but it needs a catalyst to show
people that there is an alternative."
