Final year students at the University of Edinburgh are staying in bunk beds in a converted common room in uni halls of residence due to the city's housing crisis. Fourth year students said the only thing which made the situation tolerable was sharing the experience, and begrudged being asked about their A-Level results by overexcited freshers wanting to go for hikes up Arthur's Seat.
Several fourth-year students are sleeping in bunk beds on the ground floor of multiple different accommodation blocks in Pollock Halls, after approaching the university for help when they were unable to find private accommodation. The university insisted that all students who were living under this accommodation arrangement had now been offered a “permanent room at the university”, but a number of students remain in short-term accommodation, it was understood.
Edinburgh Uni says that students are charged £9.60 for these arrangements, including bills, breakfast and dinner, and five students are living in one room on the ground floor of Turner House. Some students have declined this offer because rooms have been offered randomly across the campuses, with some offered accommodation beyond their pricing budget, and others facing complete separation from their friendship groups.
One student living with four others, Adam, said each private flat they applied for received up to 500 applications, student news site The Tab reported. He described the arrangements as “dreadful”; three bunk beds with “zero privacy” next to the noisy main common room.
Students found that being among freshers all the time is “tedious”, and that they miss home comforts such as hosting movie nights, and were annoyed by questions about their A-Levels or whether they would like to hike up Arthur’s Seat frustrating. Adam and his friends are grateful for the cheap accommodation price but say they are still looking for a permanent flat in the city centre.
He said: “We’re in this together. If it were just me, I’d be going f***ing mental."
Many are students resorting to ‘sofa surfing’, staying with partners, or remaining at home with family until they secure accommodation. Last month, Edinburgh was revealed to be the most expensive city for students to live in by a NatWest report, as the Scottish capital is the only student city in which students spend more than their monthly income.
A spokesperson for The University of Edinburgh said: “We are acutely aware that some students have been struggling to find suitable accommodation in Edinburgh. We want to support them throughout this increasingly challenging period and have opened an Accommodation Information Service in collaboration with our Students’ Association.
"The service aims to help any of our students who are having difficulties finding accommodation at the start of the semester, and we are doing everything we can to support anyone that contacts us for help. All students who met the requirements of our accommodation guarantee have been offered a place in University residences this year.
"We have also been in a position to provide offers of accommodation to more than 2,600 students over and above our guaranteed places. We provided temporary accommodation within our halls of residences for some students that didn’t fall within our accommodation guarantee, after they informed us that they had not secured a place to live at the start of the semester.
"This was a short-term option to support these students while they found a more permanent place to live. All 24 students who took up this option have now been offered a permanent room at the University.
“We have a small number of students yet to arrive in Edinburgh who have an accommodation contract with us, and we are prioritising offering any further rooms to students who are still urgently seeking a place to live. Students looking for private sector accommodation are competing with Edinburgh’s expanding workforce as well as visitors who are attracted to short-term lets across the city.
"Even though these factors are largely outside the University’s control, we understand that we have a part to play in finding solutions to the problem. We continue to work with our partner organisations across the city including the City of Edinburgh Council and other higher and further education providers to refresh our longer term accommodation strategy.
"In the short-term we have just opened a new refurbished building in Gilmore Place in central Edinburgh which can accommodate 230 students.”
