a question for student accommodation providers

slowdog

as some of you may, or may not have seen, i have a thread elsewhere on this board entitled "i cant sell my hotel". one of the options that has been mentioned is the possibility of turning the hotel into student accomodation as we are situated literally next to where the new campus is being / will be built and close enough to another couple of campuses

anyway, i have a rough idea in my head of how the hotel will need to be altered for this venture; walls knocked through, things removed, common areas...that kind of thing. what im missing are the details. what do you have to provide by law? obviously heating and lighting, and things regarding fire safety i can find out easily enough from someone here that works for us.

its the little things im more curious about, like what do we have to provide students , and so on. things that someone starting a venture like this just wouldnt know.

im essentially trying to get an idea in my head of costs involved, as needless to say, this will be an issue and would take some serious organisation and planning finincially. i suspect that the work will not actually be that hard; it would be a case of removing more than putting in as we would be changing 37 rooms into 20

what i do know is there is a gap in the market for this, so to speak. there is zero accomodation of this type in blackpool, and whilst the college isnt the biggest, it is due to expand, as i said. at the moment, everyone from 1st to 4th year students have to find houses / flats / etc when they come here to study, so something of this nature would most likely be a godsend, not only to the college, but to the students too. i myself went to bell college in hamilton and spent my first year renting a room of some old woman, and the second year living in the newly built student accommodation. guess which year was more productive and enjoyable.

anyway, if anyone out there has experience of any kind in this field, i will gladly take it. as i say, its just an option i'm looking at at the moment, but obvioulsy, its better to have as many facts as possible before making a decision

thanks in advance

northerner79

Hi,

There are a number of things that you will need to consider if changing the property to student accommodation. Will you be looking to obtain the change of use consent then sell the property to a student investor/developer?

Firstly is there a shortage of student accommodation in the area? What are the costs of conversaion?

The norm for student accommodation, new build, is for 5/6 bed pods, all with en suite facilities, a communal lounge and kitchen. I appreciate with an older property you may have not have the capacity to make all rooms en suite, for a five bed property you really need at least two bathrooms (showers as opposed to baths). You would need services split for each pod so that the students were accountable for their own services. All rooms will require broadband access.

Despite being very noisy generally, students don't like noise so any alternative use on the ground floor should be considered carefully.

As standard in student accommodation you would expect each room to have a bed, wadrobe, chest of drawers, desk and chair, as well as an internet connection.

The accommodation will have to have smoke alarms throughout as you would expect with any property. You will need to satisfy the local fire authority that there is a mean of escape. I am unsure of HMO regulations in this instance , I guess it depends on the layout of the property.

You will also need to look at the student contracts which are the norm, can you let rooms for 55/50/48/46/44 weeks of the year? Who will manage the property?

Any advice/help I can provide drop me a line.

Cheers

00ec25

as a hotelier you will of course be used to the idea of licensing, if you open as a private hall of residence then you will be a House in Multiple Occupation and will need to meet the Housing Act 2004 regulations. I'd assume that your existing infrastructure already does this, so no great problem

Colleges themselves are exempt from the Act if they follow a code of practice in regards to provision of infrastructure and its management. The most popular code is from UUK, you would not be eligible for their exemption, but it would give you an idea of the standards expected, see here for background intro and here for the code (warning it's a 30 page pdf file). Yes it is that proscriptive and every aspect is inpected in detail every 3 years by independent inspectors

I think a 20 bed unit would make an excellent place to live and I'm sure you can picture the fittings of a study bedroom. The most common causes of complaints from students which we deal with are a) noise from other occupants, b) too cold (or too hot) c) lack of social space

do not underestimate the potential pastoral/mentoring/touchy feely (not physically of course!) stuff in running a hall, it will be a whole different range of problems to dealing with adults in a hotel. Most collage run halls will have some sort of warden system backed up with a security service to deal with a range of incidents

students (or more accurately their parents) do expect a high standard these days - take a look at the private sector providers, for example we have just taken a one year trial contract with these guys at IQWave . Their rate is approx £20 per week higher than our own halls but we need the extra capacity - OK its London so not financially comparable with you in Blackpool but the standards may be indicative and IQ do have places "up north"