Summary of the Durham University analysis of student housing supply and demand

Supply

In early 2023 we undertook a data analysis exercise alongside colleagues from Durham County Council (DCC), to seek to clarify the student housing market capacity in Durham City.

There are three elements to the student housing market in Durham City:

• University owned or managed College accommodation
• Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSAs)
• Private rented accommodation (commonly referred to as HMOs, although formally an HMO must have at least 3 people resident, so wouldn't include 2 or 1 bedroom properties)

College and PBSA accommodation is simple to quantify precisely, since the University knows how many beds it has across its estate, and we have the precise number of beds in each PBSA.

Understanding the Private Rental accommodation situation is more complex and less accurate. There are two main sources of data:

1. University data from Banner of students' own self-reported term-time address
2. DCC data on Class-N Council Tax exempt properties, which are exempted from council tax because they only have students resident. DCC's data includes the number of students at each such property.

Neither of these sources of data is completely accurate - students may not update their Banner record accurately or when they move properties from one year to the next; and some houses which are recorded as being exempt may not be, or there may be students living in houses with some non-students, in which case the property wouldn't be exempt and therefore not included in this analysis.

By comparing the two sources of data, alongside the total number of students we know are living in the DH1 postcode area (again, not perfect since it relies on self-reported information), we have been able to produce the most accurate picture of student housing supply that has been produced for Durham - with an upper and lower range within about 5% of the total City supply.

That data showed that in 22/23 there were 7,777 beds in college owned or managed accommodation (this includes some PBSAs or rooms in PBSAs where the University has leased them); 2,577 other bedspaces in PBSAs; and between 7,584 and 8,614 bedspaces in private rented accommodation. A total of 17,938 - 18,968 bedspaces in the DH1 area.

Since we know there were 18,749 students living in the City in 22/23, we have assumed that the lower number of private rental accommodation must be too low, and we can deduce that the actual capacity of the City is between 18,749 and 18,968 bedspaces.

We will repeat this data exercise each year, but there are no indications at this point that supply has changed significantly in 23/24, nor will it in 24/25 (i.e. no new University or PBSA accommodation due to come online - there may have been some small fluctuations in the private rental sector).

Demand

In 22/23 the University had a total of 22,131 students, of which 21,341 were full-time.

Total student numbers for 23/24 are released after the 1 December census date. However, there has been enough accommodation in the City for everyone who wanted it this year - there were rooms in HMOs still being advertised in September, and the University has a normal number of void rooms across its estate.

In 24/25 planned total student numbers are expected to be lower than in 22/23 and 23/24. As such, we can say with confidence that there is enough student housing in Durham City to meet demand.