The devil is in the detail when it comes to student housing in Broxtowe

Yesterday I received two headline nuggets of data from Broxtowe Borough Council about student housing in the borough, with the street by street breakdown to follow.

As soon as I have it I will compile up-to-date maps and a table comparing 2015 data with 2017 data. Before I publish it I will share it with the Council just in case they have any questions concerning the way I have presented the data (it will the same format as in 2015. You can see the 2015 tables in the right-hand column across from this post).

You only have to look at the street by street totals for 2015 to understand why I say the devil is in the detail. It is going to be fascinating seeing whether the increases are spread across Broxtowe or clustered as in 2015. I have a good idea of what I expect the street by street data to show, so watch this blog for an update, probably towards the end of April.

Council tax exempt properties and Broxtowe Borough Council continued...

Today, I have used the What Do They Know website to submit a revised freedom of information (FOI) request for information about council tax exempt properties in the Broxtowe Borough Council area and added a request for information about registered houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in the borough. This time I have made it day and date specific: 1 January 2017.

In addition, I have made a separate FOI concerning council tax income lost to Broxtowe Borough Council because of registered exemptions for the financial years 2014/15, 2015/16 and to 2016/17, and much was recovered from central government?

Being open with Broxtowe Borough Council clearly does not work, so from now on I will use the What Do They Know website for all my requests for information.

This morning I have used the internet to search for student lets currently being advertised as located in Beeston by the Zoopla and Unipol websites and captured the two maps below. 

The web is awash with such information, which makes me wonder even more as why Broxtowe Borough Council has used the FOI Act to refuse me information about the total number of council tax exempt properties by street (not the location of individual properties — something I have never requested)?

Broxtowe Borough Council recently provided me with information about the number of registered voters by street. Using their logic my use of this information to create maps reveals to criminals the best streets to steal from — the more voters in a street the more there is to steal — so they should have refused me the information. Once you would have got this direct from electoral registers, but not any more (unless you are a representative of a registered political party who needs the information for canvassing etc, mailings etc).

Probably what annoys me most about all this is that my reasonable concern about maintaining some kind of 'community balance' in Beeston and across the Borough of Broxtowe becomes seen as 'anti-student' which it is not. My track record in Lenton and here in Beeston proves otherwise.

Many students want to live ordinary houses on ordinary streets and I well understand. As an oldie I want the same, but too many students, just like too many oldies, create problems which impact on local shops, services, facilities and other things as well. I could ask for information about how many council tax payers get a 25% reduction because they live alone. The problem is complex and needs addressing.

Broxtowe Borough Council's Housing Strategy 2015–2020 document (click link to read/download) does not mention students or balanced communities. The following table from the document is vague at best:

'Household structure' makes no mention of shared housing or non-couples other than 'One Person' or 'Lone Parent'. Two years ago there were 615 council tax exempt properties, which will be almost exclusively shared tenancies with three or more adults, yet the Strategy document makes no mention of this group. It is also worth noting that no data is shown for the year 2015, which is mentioned in the title of the report.

Nor does the strategy document look at housing in different parts of what is a diverse local authority area. There is no mention of housing in Beeston. The very least there should have been was a breakdown by wards/locality clusters. How this got pass the councillors is beyond me!

The list of housing 'partners' who work with Broxtowe Borough Council does not include Unipol or Nottingham University, but the Council does publish a leaflet aimed at students living in Beeston which makes no mention of what housing advice and support is available to them in Beeston.

The driving issue is housing when it comes to students in Beeston, but Broxtowe Borough Council shows little interest in taking a pro-active take in how it impacts on local shops, the wider community and local services. The Broxtowe Labour Party has, I understand, made a donation to a Nottingham Students Housing Co-op for which I can find no information on the web, apart from a Facebook page.

I hope Broxtowe Borough Council have invited them to become a housing partner.

Clearly this is the way forward for all rented housing and I wish the students involved every success. It would surely help them to know the streets where students are likely to live so that they can focus their efforts and what resources they have.

Broadgate welcome

Just found out that Judy Sleath, the Chair of Beeston & District Society, has pulled off the near impossible with help from Simon at Pixels & Graphics on Chilwell Road and Steph at Beeston BID. 

At 10pm last night  (Thursday) Judy asked me if I could do a 'student' version of my Beeston Pubs & Cafes Map for first thing this morning so that they could be printed today (Friday) and distributed tomorrow (Saturday). Just heard that 3,000 have been printed and will go to students in the Broadgate flats.

A White Lion regular.

Hopefully, a few of you living in Broadgate will find your way to this old fart's blog. If you are one of them, welcome. I hope you enjoy your time at university and living in Broadgate, which is on the wrong side of Tottlebrook to be in Beeston (and the Borough of Broxtowe). It is actually in Lenton (and the City of Nottingham), but even old Lentonians like me have always accepted that Broadgate and Lenton Abbey look to Beeston when it comes to shopping and going to the pub.

D'Oliva's a great place for lunch.

Beeston is a remarkable place by any measure. My wife Susan first came to Chilwell and Beeston as a history & archaeology student in 1969 and lodged in Chilwell vicarage for two years before spending her final year in Florrie Boot Hall.

I met Susan in Birmingham when I was a very young Birmingham city councillor and she was a very young museum curator. It was love at second sight and we were setting up home together a fortnight later and I have been an incurable romantic ever since (!).

Table 8 on Wollaton Road another lunchtime haunt.

For two years Susan walked to and from the University through Beeston to her digs in Chilwell vicarage. Work took her (and me) to Mansfield, then in 1975 we found our way to Lenton because, by then, I was a national officer for a well known charity and wanted to be near a mainline railway station.

It was not until 1996 that we started to come to Beeston every week, so when we finally decided to downsize from Lenton in 2013, it was going to be either Chilwell or Beeston. in the end, being within a few minutes walk of Beeston shops won out over being close to the tram.

The new home in town for coffee lovers who like variety.

The Broadgate flats, in terms of location, have to be close to the best in Nottingham - as I hope my pocket map demonstrates. You are less then five minutes away from some of the best pubs and cafés you will ever visit. One thing is for sure, you will remember these times.

Right now, if you have got this far, welcome to Beeston, I wish you well. See you about.

Robert Howard, beestonweek blogger.

Will Beeston councillors be the architects of their own demise?

Just over two weeks ago (25 February 2015) I posted a blog about the distribution and location of council tax exempt properties in Broxtowe Borough Council area (http://beestonweek.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/council-tax-exempt-student-properties.html). At the same time I posted a separate page of tables showing the properties street by street across the Borough (which you can still see in the column to the right of this text).

I said that I would return to the topic. I have already said that local councillors and the Council are in danger of 'sleepwalking' into a situation whereby they wake up one morning and find that they have lost the majority of Beeston's housing stock to student housing.

Having lived in Lenton for thirty-five years (1979–2014) and been actively involved in the local community I have, right now, a real sense of déjà vu. Already, a few local councillors have said to me 'There isn't a problem' or 'There is nothing we can do about it'. To be fair, some councillors recognise that there is a potential problem, but are unsure of how to address the problem.

As at February 2015, there are 519 council tax exempt properties with Beeston addresses and 'To let' signs are becoming permanent fixtures around the town, as witnessed by the four signs I photographed on Broadgate this morning.

For now I just want to say a quick word about houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). Only 55 of the 519 council tax exempt properties in Beeston are HMOs, which seems a very low number. There is a myth in the minds of local councillors, seemingly given substance by council officers, that for a house to be a HMO it has to have at least five unrelated occupants and cover at least three floors. Not so. Nottingham requires all properties with three or more unrelated occupants to be registered as HMOs and Broxtowe Borough Council could do the same. It is a topic I intend to write about in a future post. Just click on the following link to learn more about HMOs in Nottingham.

There are now numerous studies about the student housing market in and around Nottingham, including Beeston. Here is a link to a UNIPOL report from 2008 at: www.unipol.leeds.ac.uk/nottingham/IFS/accomodation_choices.asp.

The uncontrolled growth of student properties in Lenton spawned the Nottingham Action Group, better known to many as 'NAG'. It was much more vocal and single-minded than the Dunkirk and Lenton Partnership Forum, which was founded in 1996 by local individuals and groups to try and address local concerns about a wide range of issues, including the growth of students lets. I was one of the founders and the Forum's first Chair, later doing a second stint. Our 'softly softly' approach, trying to reason with Nottingham City Council and Nottingham University did not work and with the arrival of NAG, who took a far tougher line, the city council was slowly beaten into submission. NAG's strident approach was not one I was happy with, but they were, eventually, successful, but by then it was too late. Lenton was as good as lost. A few of us hung on in the hope that things could be turned around. In the end, Susan and I made the painful decision to leave Lenton and find a smaller house in Beeston. It took thirteen months and was a traumatic experience.

If Beeston's councillors and Broxtowe Borough Council continue to be complacent about the impact student housing is having they will be the architects of their own demise.

It probably won't be an issue in this year's Borough election, but in 2019, in the absence of action to address the problem, it will be an issue. It might though be an issue in the 2017 Nottinghamshire County Councl election.

You may wonder why the photograph of the Humber Road street sign? The answer is that 43% of the properties on the road are already council tax exempt. Other roads are running it close, as you can discover for yourself from my street by street list opposite.

Landlords and students like to cluster together and as they take over a street, so the families and older residents begin to sell up and move out, happy to sell to the next private landlord who wants a slice of the action.

My map starkly shows the streets in Beeston already lost or in the process of being taken over. The Beeston Fields Estate is prime territory for student housing. Many of the houses have large back gardens making it easy for houses to be extended and the number of rooms increased.

Students will impact on local shops and it is easy to imagine a '30 week economy' developing. For the best part of 20 weeks every year the houses stand empty and this change the nature of Beeston shops and shopping. Compared to what is happening to Beeston's housing stock right now, the tram only acts as a diversion.

I believe in 'balanced communities', made up of all kinds of folk. Too many councillors and the Borough Council mouth the phrase with little intent — they see it as something they have to say, but if old folk want to live in their own urban villages and the rich in gated communities, then so be it. If and when you adopt this attitude, it is easy to surrender streets to private landlords.

Again if you doubt me, walk up and down Beeston High Road looking in estate agents' windows and you will find plenty of properties for sale, described as a 'investment opportunity'.

For my part, I believe housing too important not to managed in the interests of local communities and I see no place for private landlords whatsoever. I am in favour of municipal housing, managed and controlled by local councils. The growth of housing associations can be linked with the demise of council housing across England and these 'not-for-profit' housing companies, often based many miles away, are a poor substitute.

I spent twenty-one years as a manager of charitable housing, first in the Midlands, then nationally. In truth, my work involved offering second-best solutions to very local problems, which local councils could have managed better had they not been stripped of their housing stocks and budgets by Thatcher and it is to Labour's shame they did nothing during their thirteen years in power to address the chronic housing shortage which has existed in England for decades.

Even when they had the opportunity to pour billions into housing after the 2008 crash (and saving jobs and empowering local authorities in the process), Brown and Darling chose to give the money to the banks instead.

What is happening in Beeston right now is part of the same mindset. The evidence is there for all to see.