Leeds HMO Lobby

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Representations
on the Proposed Modifications of the
Leeds Unitary Development Plan

(1) Leeds HMO Lobby supports Proposed Modification 7/008 on Student Housing in general terms: the Modification will implement the acknowledgement in the Inspector’s Report “that the population overall is out of balance and that action is needed to ensure a sustainable community.” In particular, the Lobby supports:
# the change of the wording of Policy H15 to support a mix of housing, in particular that available for family occupation, as recommended by the Inspector;
# the alteration of the second part of the Inspector’s suggestion for Policy H15, concerned with the development of a student housing strategy, from policy to supporting text;
# the change of the wording of Policy H15A, as recommended by the Inspector;
# the omission from Policy H15A of the Inspector’s suggestion that specific locations be referred to, in favour of the use of LDF Area Action Plans, as recommended by the Lobby;
# the change of the title of Plan M/071 to ‘Area of Housing Mix’, and the addition to the Area of Kirkstall Hill, Beckett’s Park, Moor Grange and Lawnswood, as recommended by the Lobby, and supported by the Inspector.

(2) The grounds for the representation of objection by Leeds HMO Lobby to paragraph 7.6.31a in Proposed Modification 7/008 on Student Housing are as follows.
# As a statement of intent, the second sentence is completely contrary to Policy H15 proposed in the First Deposit of Leeds UDP Review, which stated that “In the Area of Student Housing Restraint, the following development will not be permitted: (i) student halls of residence.”
# The Inspector’s own Report acknowledged that “the population overall is out of balance.” The key problem is demographic imbalance, not the precise type of student housing. Encouragement of more purpose-built student housing can only contribute to that imbalance.
# The example of Kirkstall Brewery and Sugarwell Court and their neighbourhoods demonstrates that purpose-built student housing does not “relieve pressure on conventional housing;” on the contrary, it increases that pressure (on the one hand, students leaving the accommodation look for housing in the familiarity of the surrounding neighbourhood; and on the other, their friends [not in the accommodation] look for housing nearby).
# The presence of purpose-built student housing is actually a deterrent to the rebalancing of a community by the immigration of long-term residents, especially families, which is the stated aim of Policy H15.
# The encouragement of purpose-built student housing within the Area of Housing Mix would be in direct competition with the intent of Policy H15A, to “encourage and support pioneer developments ... and generate alternative popular locations for students to live, other than the wider Headingley area.”

In paragraph 7.6.31a Proposed Modification 7/008 on Student Housing, Leeds HMO Lobby seeks the following change:
Amendment of the second sentence of the paragraph, replacing the word encourage with the word consider, to read: “It will also consider proposals for purpose-built student housing, specifically reserved and managed for that purpose, that will improve the total stock of student accommodation, relieve pressure on conventional housing and assist in regenerating areas in decline or at risk of decline.”

Leeds HMO Lobby
email: hmolobby@hotmail.com website: www.hmolobby.org.uk/leeds