Renewed support for essential investment in HE accommodation
The purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) sector will play a vital role in tackling the undersupply of student beds and maintaining the status of the UK’s world-class universities, a parliamentary reception has heard.
The PBSA sector has developed from nothing 20 years ago into an industry with more than £20bn of assets that provides 175,000 beds to students, compared with 275,000 in university halls.
This still falls short of the 800,000 beds a year needed for universities to meet their ‘accommodation promise’ to provide housing for first year undergraduate and international students. Richard Simpson, Managing Director of the UK’s leading operator of purpose built student accommodation, UNITE, said that the predicted rise in student numbers, following the removal of number caps in the Autumn Statement, would put further pressure on student accommodation …