Coventry has “too much student housing” as a city center block to be left out

Too many student accommodation in Coventry leave empty rooms in a huge block of flats in the city centre. Trinity View on Friars Road will be able to rent rooms to non-students on term, the council agreed last week.

A planning letter said student demand from the city had been hit since the building opened in 2019. Brexit and the pandemic meant far fewer international students came to the UK to study, it said.

There is also an “oversupply of purpose-built student accommodation” in the city, it added. These factors had an “influential impact” on the number of rooms rented in the building and how long students stay.

Read more: ‘Stricter’ youth policy for new festival after Godiva ‘brudare’

But since 2022, when the council agreed the building can temporarily let non-student rooms out of school hours, student demand has seen “a further decline”. The building has “high vacancy levels” in the academic year, it added, falling from 92 per cent in 2021-22 to 74 per cent and only recovering this year due to short-term letting.

The letter said some of this was due to the lingering impact of Brexit and the pandemic. But he added: “the biggest issue in Coventry affecting student demand is oversupply.”

The paper also cited a report by StuRents last year showing that the number of student schemes in Coventry had increased recently, sparking what is “likely” to be a period of “challenging fundamentals” for those running student blocks , because “supply exceeds demand. He added that short-term summer rentals, set at a minimum of three nights, have been successful.

But having the building less than 95 percent full is “not sustainable,” the letter said. He added that renting rooms to students full-term is still the “priority” for building administrators.

The situation will be “monitored” and the new use allowed until 2027. The letter also pointed out that other student blocks in the city are in a “similar situation”, which is evident from other change of use applications such as at 33 years old. Parkside last year.

A council officer’s report on the move said the new use would support tourism and visitors to the town and added there was no policy against losing student accommodation. A new condition will also be added, meaning that non-students can only stay on the block for a maximum of 90 days.

Sign up here for our FREE daily newsletter for all the latest Coventry news.