Nottingham Student Living Strategy

The Student Living Strategy (SLS) sets out how partners can support students with their housing needs, improve the choice and quality of student accommodation, maximise the benefits of having a large student population and help to tackle any negative impacts this can have on local communities, businesses, and services.  

The strategy is a partnership between Nottingham City Council (NCC), the University of Nottingham (UoN) and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) – they are termed the partners.

The two popular universities play a major role in the city’s economy and its national and international reputation. They add a combined £3.8billion to the UK economy each year, account for around 14% of the local economy, and support 25,000 jobs across the area.  

In this Student Living Strategy, the council and both universities set out their commitment to working together to help address the challenges associated with a large population of short-term student residents, and to help build stronger links between students and the city.  

Nottingham is a young, diverse city. Around one in seven Nottingham City residents is a student at one of the two universities, and more than half the population is under 30.  

Students make valuable and positive contributions to the city – volunteering in communities and carrying out work placements and projects during their studies. Many students build strong links with Nottingham, choosing to stay as graduates and use their skills in local services, businesses and communities. But, as a city we could do better at harnessing and maximising these contributions.  

Similarly, we know that a minority of students, often living away from the family home for the first time, can create challenges in the communities they move into. In some areas, larger concentrations of students living in residential houses has an ongoing impact on services and neighbourhood relations.    The partners have already carried out some actions to help with these challenges. This Strategy sets out our longer-term plans. 

Work together to make Nottingham a great city to live, learn and grow in, where diverse, sustainable communities support the health, wellbeing and potential of all residents, and individuals are treated with equity, giving, and receiving mutual respect for the benefit of all. 

By working together, Nottingham can continue to be an attractive destination for students who become active and engaged members of the community, contributing significantly to the economy, sustainability, diversity, culture and vibrancy of the city and communities in which they reside.

To do this, we have set out 3 main priorities as part of the strategy:

Priority 1: Diversify and innovate to improve the quality, safety, affordability and location of available accommodation for all students across the city. Actively promote a growth in affordable alternative accommodation options to encourage a better balance of student housing choice across the city.

Priority 2: Encourage neighbourliness, where students contribute to creating a clean, attractive and sustainable environment which supports the wellbeing of the entire community. Proactively tackle the social and financial impact of waste and noise issues.

Priority 3: Ensure students are valued members of the communities they reside in and proactively work to maximise graduate retention by developing and promoting opportunities to increase community cohesion and mutual benefit for all citizens.

What previous engagement has there been?

To create a Strategy that is relevant, accurate and impactful, the partners initally commissioned an independent market research company to undertake a series of focus groups with a range of key stakeholders. These included:

• Residents groups
• Student Unions
• Businesses representatives
• Student accommodation providers
• Service providers; and
• Councillors

This engagement enabled the partners to shape the overall ambition and priorities of the Strategy. 

Keen to hear from students, other local residents, stakeholders and employers about how we achieve positive outcomes, a public consultation exercise was undertaken on the Draft Student Living Strategy in early 2023.  This ensured that the Strategy acts as a positive vehicle to help address some of the many issues that have been associated with high levels of student concentrations in the city for many years.

Consultation was undertaken with those who attended the focus group earlier in 2022, as well as publicising to members of the public, residents, students, resident associations, landlords, property owners and other interested parties.   The online survey was promoted through various channels of the partners and other stakeholders including the Student Unions, Unipol, landlord and agents forums etc.  This interactive web site was also created to help steer people through the issues and allow them to submit their online consultation comments.

The local, regional and several specialised national media outlets picked up on the consultation including BBC Today news programme, local press and radio.

Overall the messages back from those consulted was positive, with around three quarters of respondents stating that they felt that the actions would have at least some benefit.

The main changes to the Strategy as a direct result of the consultation are set out below:

You can view the full Nottingham Student Living Strategy document at the link below:

Student Living Strategy Privacy Notice