Record intake forces freshers out of Winchester and into hotels

Fifty students have been told they will have to commute from halls in Southampton in their first year, paying £1,092 for an annual rail ticket to attend lectures.

Seventy-three others have been placed in the Holiday Inn at Morn Hill, Premier Inn, Eastleigh, and Premier Inn West in Basingstoke, while the university tries to find them housing.

The waiting list for accommodation has been as long as 300, according to reports from students on social media, although the university has declined to comment on the exact number.

The crisis will renew concerns over the ‘studentification’ of council estates such as Stanmore as many students reject beds miles from the city and turn to the private rental market.

Sarah Newstead, 19, from Sandhurst, Berkshire, was due to start a law degree next week (September 22), but is reconsidering after being placed in Liberty Point, Southampton.

She said: “At the open day they were going on about how they were all for the students, and it just seems they’re not.

How can you play with people’s lives? You’re just a name on a piece of paper rather than a person.”

Sarah Hughes, 18, from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, who was also housed in Liberty Point, said: “I think they’re just being greedy, taking on too many people. They know they don’t have enough housing.

“I would rather have been turned down on results day and told they don’t have enough.”

Naomi Carter, president of Winchester Student Union, said: “I know many of them are very worried about the situation.

"We are working with the university to do what we can for them.

“Last year we had a high number of drop-outs in the summer holidays. They [the university] took the risk in assuming that would be the same again this year.”

Liberty Point student housing complex in Southampton

The second accommodation crisis in five years comes after a housing shortage in 2009 forced the university to put 50 students up in a hotel near Southampton Airport. Some students were moved to a former homeless hostel and an old people’s home — in which at least one elderly resident still lived — before being permanently housed.

University bosses had hoped that a 500- bed complex in Burma Road, opened last year, would reduce the influx of students into neighbourhoods like Winnall, Stanmore and Weeke.

But just a year later the record intake of students — believed to be more than 2,000 — has pushed late applicants into the private market.

Paul Stephens, of estate agent Goadsby, said their properties have been filled by first-year domestic students who turned down hotel rooms or Southampton halls.

He said: “We’ve never seen first-year students going directly into houses — it’s always second years. This is very peculiar.”

Stanmore ward councillor Jamie Scott said investors looking to “pack” students into houses for profit are marginalising families in Winchester.

He said: “Too many family homes are going over to student lets, and it’s completely changing the dynamics of our community.

“[The university] have created the problem themselves,” he added. “They need to take responsibility for their actions in taking on extra students. How much more can we take on board?”

Professor Neil Marriott, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Winchester, said there was “unprecedented” demand for housing this year, as more students than expected retained their place.

“This year the government has provided additional university places,” he said.

“We have experienced high demand from applicants who have applied late. The university made a decision to support those students who need accommodation.”

A university spokesman said that only late applicants have been placed outside Winchester, adding it met its guarantee to provide centrally managed housing to first-year students who applied as their firm choice before June.