Student housing: how accessible are key services from student developments?

Student housing is provided, based on the local demand and availability. This report is looking at the current or new developments of student housing across Cambridgeshire based on the planning applications received between 2002 and 2014. This accommodation is anticipated to meet the requirements of national and international students. Based on the applications received, the student accommodations are mainly concentrated in Cambridge City.

What data has the “Accessibility of services to student housing provision” used?

This report has used data from the annual monitoring survey 2014 https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/FINAL%20AMR.pdfcarried out by Cambridgeshire County Council. Student housing planning permission1 completions and commitments between 1st April 2002 and 31st March 2014 were extracted from business data and analysed in relation to key services. Key services included retail shops, doctors, outpatient hospitals, A&E hospitals, bus stops and nearest employment areas. The map is a thematic (colour-coded) map using student accommodation data for all categories2, by ward from Census 2011.

The location of student accommodations in Cambridgeshire is tracked for nearby essential services. The time taken to reach the nearest essential services using public transport was measured using tracking software (Visography-TRACC) and results are as follows:

Time to:

Bus stop: 60% of the student houses are within a two minute walking distance of their nearest bus stop; and 30% are within two to five minutes of their nearest bus stop. The average time taken to walk to the nearest bus stop from a student house is 2.1 minutes.

GP: 90% of the student houses are within ten minutes of a doctors using public transport. Only 3% take 15-20 minutes to reach their nearest doctor using public transport. The average time is five minutes.

Retail: 63% of the student households are within ten minutes of a retail shop using public transport. Only 9% are within 15 or more minutes from a retail shop. The average time taken to reach a retail shop via public transport is 9.4 minutes.

Outpatient hospitals: 17% of the student houses are within ten minutes of an outpatient’s hospital using public transport. For 31%, it takes over 20 minutes to reach an outpatients hospital. The average time taken is 16.4 minutes.

Accident and Emergency (A&E) Hospitals: 17% of the student houses are within ten minutes of an A&E hospital using public transport. For 33%, the time taken could be 20 or more minutes to reach an A&E hospital. The average time taken is 17.5 minutes.

Employment Areas: 97% of the student houses are within ten minutes of their nearest employment area using public transport. Only 3% needs 15-40 minutes to reach their nearest employment area. The average time taken is 5.3 minutes.

For further information, contact: Vandana Manocha or Heather Doidge – Planning Support Officers Cambridgeshire County Council, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP Tel: 01223 699941, 01223 715684 Email: Vandana.manocha@cambridgeshire.gov.uk, heather.doidge@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

  1. Planning permissions with use class as C1 or SuiG, given by the government https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/9/change_of...↩

  2. Census 2011: Student accommodation: All categories: Full-time students and economic activity; Age 16 and over. ↩