Members of St Andrews University Students’ Association have branded proposals to ban new houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in the town centre as “nothing more than inept social engineering.”
They warn lives are at risk and insist the policy “will only make things worse.”
Fife Council last week outlined new guidelines to deny planning permission for new HMOs in the St Andrews conservation area.
The town has a high proportion of such properties due to its large student population and there is concern that families and young workers have been priced out of the town centre by HMO owners.
The moratorium also addresses fears that student-dominated areas become “ghost towns” outwith the academic year.
While councillors welcomed the plans, the students’ association has launched a spirited campaign against the ban.
President Owen Wilton insists it will be disastrous for students and the wider community.
“The proposed HMO ban amounts to nothing more than inept social engineering,” he said. “It is wrong in principle, futile and even harmful in practice.
“HMOs were introduced to ensure tenant safety following a fatal flat fire in Glasgow, not to enable local planners to shuffle communities around the map.”
Despite the best intention of councillors, Mr Wilton insists an HMO ban will do little to tackle spiralling property prices.
“An HMO limit is not a silver bullet which will suddenly make house prices affordable,” he said. “The average St Andrews house price is in line with many other beautiful, north-east coastal towns.Power of market”You would have to shut down the university, the Old Course, both beaches and most shops to overcome the power of the market.”
Siena Parker, director of representation with the students’ association, is similarly alarmed by the new guidelines and insists they represent a “bad deal” for students and families alike.
“This policy could potentially damage the community as a whole,” she said. “We are not just looking out for students. A town centre HMO limit will simply push student buy-to-let demand into the periphery of St Andrews, driving up property prices in the very residential zone in which young families might want to and can afford to live. In this respect it will achieve precisely the opposite to what Fife Council intended.”
The association insists there are also potential student safety implications.
“Even if the ban were introduced, any property going on the market could still end up as a student flat either an illegal and unregulated property, or a two-student property, with the tenants paying a higher premium,” Mr Wilton said.
“Without proper checks and balances on properties such as sufficient fire escapes and carbon monoxides alarms students could be forced into living in unregulated and unsafe houses.
“This is not an imagined or exaggerated threat,” he continued. “The students’ association has discovered 13 unregistered landlords and six properties without HMOs in the last nine months.”
Of Fife’s 1120 licensed HMOs, 93% are in the St Andrews housing area.