A government bid to break up student living communities around the UK could develop into one of the most sinister social threats since apartheid – warns an influential professional body for the country’s private sector landlords. The Residential Landlords Association - whose members own over 100,000 private rented properties throughout the UK – is concerned over the way planning legislation is being used to control where university and college students live. And the same principle could be used to exclude other groups of people from living where they choose.

The issue has been dubbed ‘studentification’ – a housing pattern that develops when clusters of properties are rented out to undergraduates and grow into student communities usually within convenient walking distance from universities and colleges. Similar patterns are emerging for young professionals and migrant workers. To counter this, the government has been persuaded to make a fundamental change to the local ‘Use Classes Order’ – which requires planning permission to change the classification of a domestic family home into a shared ‘house in multiple occupation’. That way, private sector landlords can be discouraged or refused if they want to provide shared houses for rent.

“All this started when a few pockets of local residents began to make an issue out of noisy parties, untidiness and litter,” says Richard Jones, the Residential Landlords Association‘s legal adviser. “They wanted to go back to the old days when families lived there. “But if local authorities can apply planning laws for social engineering purposes – to create areas where certain types of people are discouraged from living - where is that to end? “What about southern seaside towns where elderly residents go to retire. Perhaps local agencies will decide they don’t want that kind of pressure on their healthcare and social services so what will stop them wanting to use planning powers to reduce the number of older people?

“The precedent is being set now – with students.  If planning laws were used to control the ethnic mix of a community there would be uproar. “This is not what planning laws are for. They were never intended as a means of social engineering - to decide who lives where.  So why are we allowing some residents to influence them in order to dictate who their neighbours are? We are meant to live in a free and democratic society where people can choose where they live.

“The government has been responsible, in the first place, for driving up the student population to a target 50 per cent of young people in higher education. So where on earth did the politicians think these extra students were going to live?

“Universities and colleges don’t have the resources to provide purpose built accommodation. And commercially built halls of residence are generally unpopular for many older students. They prefer the independence of sharing houses with friends. “