Demonstration for affordable accommodation
By: Patrick O'Hare
May 2008
Demonstrations are normally conspicuously absent in St. Andrews around the first of May but this year witnessed what we hope will be a new chapter in student mobilization as around 120 students took to the streets on May 2nd to protest against university plans to scrap around 250 affordable beds. A noisy and colourful march took over St. Andrews’s small town centre, chanting slogans such as “we demand lower rents, we don’t want to sleep in tents” and holding placards proclaiming “rents not robbery” and “loan-rent=skint student”. Enthusiastic speakers even evoked the heady days of May 68!
Helped no doubt by the sunny weather, the demonstrators were in buoyant mood and clearly enjoyed having the opportunity to make their feelings clear about the extortionate price of accommodation in St. Andrews, which has the highest student rents in Scotland. The protest was organized by the Lower Rents Now coalition which arose principally in opposition to plans to scrap the low-cost Fife Park residence (where I currently live) and replace it with new flats whose rents will be around double current levels. The university is being forced by new Multiple Occupancy regulations to either refurbish or replace Fife Park but many believe that it is merely using the regulations as an excuse to get rid of one of only two low-cost residences. Many have questioned university figures which suggest that basic refurbishment would be more expensive than demolishing the entire complex and building new homes.
Additionally, there is real anger about the university’s ‘consultation’ process where it effectively presented only one real proposal. After students strongly expressed their desire for basic, no frills affordable homes and expressed dissatisfaction with the self-catered DRA (a recently built residence) model, which students have characterized as being more like a hotel than a home, the university reached its conclusion: students need more DRA-style accommodation! Many suspect that this decision is based on the suitability of DRA style-flats for letting to summer tourists and also on the revenue the university could generate from charging students 4000 pounds for an 8 month contract. It is thus increasingly apparent that the university is motivated by profit margins and not by the desire to provide services for students.
A recent report by the Student Association highlighted the difficulties of trying to get by on a loan whilst paying such high rents. With the current maximum loan available to Scottish students at 4000 pounds, students from less privileged backgrounds would be unable to pay for food, never mind other social activities! The choices for poorer students are increasingly harsh: struggle to balance low-paid part time work and studies, get into more debt with banks or quite simply not be able to attend university. This is the hidden reality behind dominant discourse on equal opportunities, fighting social injustice and universal access to education. The twisted logic is all too clear in St. Andrews at least: what does it matter if poorer students can’t afford to study in St. Andrews when there are plenty of richer students who are queuing up to come here and are able to pay high rents?
Despite university claims that our demonstration does not represent the views of the wider student population the exact opposite appears to be the case. Amongst demonstrators a huge cross sector of St. Andrews students were represented and the views from those who did not attend were not hostile but sympathetic, even from better off students who have to pay the highest catered university accommodation costs in Scotland. The Student Association managed to gather 1000 signatures for 1000 affordable beds in under one week.
Yet despite these strong indications of student feeling the university position has been characterized by arrogance and intransigence. Despite a very non-confrontational approach taken by the Student Association (who actually distanced themselves from our demonstration) the university has yet to offer any compromise whatsoever and when we met with a leading university official he threatened us with the possibility of cutting more cheap beds and eventually privatizing accommodation services if we went ahead with the demo!
Yet thankfully students have taken the first step in flexing their muscle and showing that we will not let cuts be implemented without putting up a fight. In one of Scotland’s most elitist university towns, against a backdrop of supposed student apathy, it was truly inspiring to see so many students come out to demonstrate not just for themselves but for the rights of future generations of less privileged students to attend the university. Initial support for our demands has also already flooded in from local councilors, MEP’s and members of staff and with one year to go until the proposed demolition of Fife Park there is still time to organize a more broad-based campaign to safeguard an affordable option. The mood amongst St. Andrews students at the demonstration was in any case clear: we’ve found our voice, we won’t shut up and we will carry on fighting rent rises and cuts to affordable accommodation!
