Students or young families? I will choose students every time

Time and again throughout the so-called "Great Student Debate'', a sacred cow has been placed before us, as if we should accept its existence without question, and that its presence brings nought but goodness to the world.

What is this sacred cow? The sainted, holy and incorruptible "young family".

I repeatedly read that this essence of neighbourhood divinity is being hounded to extinction by the nasty, evil, satanic student households. Evil is stalking the streets of Oldfield Park, evicting "young families'', and replacing them with those in scholastic garb, wreaking havoc far and wide, poisoning the water, contaminating the land, and, worst of all, having fun.

But, the sacred cow must be questioned. Having lived both next door to students and to young families, I know which I prefer.

Young families always include an unfortunate element; that of young children. Between the ages 0 and 3 they do nothing but squawk and cry, mewl and puke, and soil their own clothes. Between 3 and 12 they appear unable to express any thought worth listening to, but nature has made allowances for that, by ensuring that these "thoughts" are expressed at full shout. And get two or more brats of that age together, and they spend all the time trying to out-shout each other, rising to crescendos of ear piercing screams, like seagulls on a landfill.

After 12 they go silent, wear hoodies, hang around outside chip shops or at the "Sandpits", and drink illicit wino-cider between bouts of littering, vandalism and terrorising old ladies.

I was brought up to be seen and not heard; and to respect authority and my elders. Coppers didn't serve ASBOs, they took you home to allow parents to mete out summary justice. My parents weren't my friends (until I'd left home and had my own mortgage – that somehow made us equal!), they were my commanding officers. My father had a look that could turn Medusa to stone, and when you saw that look, you knew it was time to sit down. And shut up.

Today, it's all changed. Parents try to be chummy with their children. They treat them like mates, and take them to the restaurant, or the pub. And when these nose-pickers are put in these adult-centric worlds, they get bored and start shouting, running around, and walking on the banquettes. And I simply cannot remember the last time I saw a kid surrender his seat on a bus to an adult.

So, if you live in a house next to a "young family'', with under-12s, your garden is never at peace. As soon as the good weather comes, the nose-pickers are outside, screaming, shouting, running about, and failing to respect property boundaries.

And families are architecturally destructive too. No sooner has a young couple's union been blessed, than they have the builders in, knocking through downstairs to destroy what used to be rooms, and create what they call a "family space". And just to ensure that all the Victorian character is purged from the house, they go all dormer-window-tastic in the loft, presumably to create a master suite to escape the noise and untidiness of the "family space".

So, maybe, just maybe, these "young families" don't deserve the Victorian charm of Oldfield Park, if that's the way they treat it?

But the bottom line is this. Whether "young families" bring joy and happiness, or lots of noise and disruption, whether they are good or evil, and whether their offspring are angelic darlings, or Lords of the Flies (I know which I think they are), it isn't the students that have been hounding them out of Oldfield Park. No sir. It is market forces.

When a young family sells up, they don't sell to other young families, they sell to the highest bidder, and the highest bidders are landlords. So don't blame the students for the living conditions thrust upon them, blame the young families who sell their houses to student landlords!

OLDFIELD PARK RESIDENT Full Details Supplied (

Anonymity requested as writer says he knows lots of young families in the area!

)

I read C Doering's letter about student accommodation with interest and agree with all he/she says. I have been appalled for many years at the transformation of Oldfield Park from an area where families live as a community, knowing and caring for their neighbours, to what is becoming a 'student ghetto'.

Ghettos are only one step away from slums and slums are demolished.

Many of the landlords of student houses care little for the condition of the houses and are really only interested in maximum income less minimum cost equalling maximum cash in their pockets. They don't even have to pay council tax and the cost of the services used by the students is borne by the rest of B&NES residents.

Standing at my front door, I can count seven houses that are within a stone's throw, all occupied by students. Fortunately, I have good neighbours either side of my home so do not suffer the problems of your previous correspondent close at hand. However, most of the seven student houses look dowdy and uncared for, and only receive the attention of workmen during the summer break when, no doubt, they are restored to a minimum standard.

When I moved to this area, Oldfield Park houses were affordable to first-time buyers. I know many who started their married life in such houses, and moved on to larger houses as the need for more bedrooms became necessary. The prices now advertised for such properties are outside the range of first-time buyers, artificially inflated by landlords' purchases for student housing.

There is opposition to building new houses on green belt land near Bath. Quite right.

What we need is the occupation of the houses we already have.

The answer is to only allow universities to have the number of students that they can accommodate, either on campus, or in specialised student housing such as has recently been built on the Lower Bristol Road. This action would soon focus the minds of the university management.

In the meantime, let us see landlords of student houses make a fair contribution to local council costs. Changes can only be made by central Government so if any of the prospective candidates for Bath can guarantee change, they will get my vote in the forthcoming General Election.

PETE FALLA Oldfield Park, Bath

It has been interesting to follow the debate in your letters pages on the housing issues in Oldfield Park and I would like to add my perspective.

Homes in multiple occupation are very much a part of British life these days, however market forces have meant that Oldfield Park has a high number of these properties, mainly let to students.

In my view what has gone wrong in Bath has been the huge expansion of student numbers over the last 10 years or so. The universities have increased the number of students, but not increased their accommodation to match. The council and the universities have allowed this to happen – wrongly I feel.

Ball park figures are that over the last 10 years there has been an increase in student numbers of about 10,000. What is shameful is that the council and universities leave it to market forces to decide where to home all these extra people.

I'm happy to admit that having the two universities in Bath is good for Bath. They are good for Bath's economy through employment and good for diversity and culture – the overall "vibe" of the city. However the uncontrolled expansion of the universities has meant that many young people (who aren't rich enough to go to university nor academically minded) from our city can't find a home in Bath.

People who would like to be first-time buyers have been priced out of the market by a lot of the housing stock in areas such as Oldfield Park being taken up by buy-to-let investors.

What is more, these landlords seem only to be targeting the student market. Recently a resident contacted me and said: "I wouldn't mind but my daughter is desperately seeking housing in this area, and it seems they only want to let to students not local people!"

As Bath's workers have moved to live in Frome, Peasedown, Midsomer Norton and Radstock, they now have to travel to their workplace in Bath. This has put a huge strain of the transport networks, the environment, and also the local housing sector in those towns.

The council's new core strategy can help deal with this. In our submission to the Core Strategy consultation, the Liberal Democrats called for an increase of accommodation, either on campus or purpose built in the city to enable two thirds of students to be housed. To reach this ambition however, the universities must engage proactively with the council's Housing and Planning teams to deliver a robust and sustainable strategy for housing our student population which is now about 20,000 people or 20 per cent of Bath's population.

COUNCILLOR WILL SANDRY St Kilda's Road Bath