578 newly-built student rooms will bring down prices

Two blocks of student accommodation currently under construction will add 578 new rooms to York’s supply. They will join around 3,500 existing rooms of purpose-built student accommodation in the city which are operated by private providers. Both projects are accepting bookings for rooms starting in September 2025, although it’s unclear whether all the new rooms will be available by then.

Fusion Students, on the corner of Fishergate and Blue Bridge Lane, will open 193 ensuite rooms (starting at £234pppw) and 82 studios (from £317pppw). This is on the site of the former Mecca Bingo, which closed in 2021.

Meanwhile, Prestige Student Living is opening Raffles Hall on James Street, near to Lidl. Planning documents state that it will contain 195 ensuites (starting at £214pppw) and 108 studios (from £265pppw).

Together these two developments represent a 16% increase to capacity in private halls, and an overall 2% increase over 2024-25 in the total number of student rooms available in the city.

Both sets of halls are, quite clearly from their prices, targeting the more premium end of the market. They come with all the features that luxury halls seem to have now, like a gym and a gaming area. The Raffles Hall developers told a council committee¹ that this was due to student demand: “it’s a request of students that they have these things." At another of their sites in York, bedrooms have been removed to install a games area and extra breakout space.

How are these going to affect prices for everyone else?

While these prices are out of reach for most, they’re in line with rents in existing private-sector student halls for 2025-26. The new rooms won’t have much of a directly visible impact on prices for most students, but they will ease pressure on the market as a whole, which will end up bringing improvements for everyone.

This is because two different things could happen.

Firstly, there could be enough people that can afford these prices, and so the new halls will be filled up. But then there will be other rooms in the city now empty, and most of these will be more affordable, creating a greater supply of reasonably priced mid-tier accommodation.

Alternatively, rents in the new developments could have been set so high that they’re outside everyone’s budget - and as a result, there won’t be enough tenants to fill all the rooms. This would leave a number of rooms empty, costing the accommodation providers significantly in terms of lost rent. It would then be financially advantageous to lower prices, first in the purpose-built halls market to ensure they’re filled to capacity. Students would see this effect spread across the rest of the market, as landlords across the city will freeze or lower their rents.

Either way, prices will eventually fall.

Private halls remain the premium option

Many people will say that private providers should be building fewer studios and more accommodation that the majority of students can afford, cutting down on ensuites, studios and unnecessary amenities. This would have a lot of benefits - students would see an immediate fall in prices if this happened.

One reason for the current situation is that it’s often easier to gain council approval for lower-density accommodation, with the logic being that there will be a smaller impact on the local area in terms of travel and waste. Raffles Hall was initially rejected by the council², citing overdevelopment, until it was slightly downsized from 316 to 303 rooms and a small ‘pocket park’ was added. Some say that private providers are able to derive more profit from luxury accommodation, although we have struggled to find a way to evaluate this suggestion. It’s notable that other cities (Leeds for instance) don’t seem to have the same heavy bias towards premium halls, so there could also be other factors at play.

Premium rooms may not deliver the sudden shock the market needs, but in the medium term any new development will mean prices will fall or increase slower than inflation. It’s hard to determine how long this will take, as providers and letting agents will need to adjust their pricing strategies to minimise the number of empty rooms. York’s student housing problems are being fixed, it’s now just a question of if it will happen soon enough.

Prices correct as of 14th April 2025.

Footnotes

1. City of York Council Planning Committee A, 3 February 2022: https://www.youtube.com/live/gl7rIYFKAuM?si=kWSsUiBrvKCzFIwq&t=9744 2:42:24 ↩

2. Planning Applications, City of York Council: https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/ ↩