PBSA from an international student perspective, Social Spaces Inspired by Co-working and Trends in Planning Approvals

In our latest episode we discuss:
 
- PBSA from an international student perspective: Why the hesitation from investors? We're tackling the misconceptions and highlight opportunities.
- Social Spaces Inspired by Co-working: What shared living can learn from the co-working revolution to foster community and innovation.
- Trends in Planning Approvals: Are we witnessing a growth in planning approvals? 
We discuss what this means for the future of shared living.
 
From Unipol conference takeaways to the importance of community building and the latest market trends, this episode is packed with insights for anyone involved in student housing, BTR, co-living, or operational real estate.
 
Listen now for a fresh perspective on understanding the challenges and opportunities in shared living.

Housed: The Shared Living Podcast aims to bring the latest news, views and insights to the shared living sector.

Each week, Sarah Canning, Deenie Lee of The Property Marketing Strategists and Daniel Smith of Student Housing Consultancy will be delving into a wide variety of subjects and asking the questions that aren't often asked. This podcast is for anyone who works in Student Accommodation, BTR, Co-living, Operational Real Estate or Shared Living.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of the individual hosts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the ninth episode of Housed, the shared living podcast. We're back after a little break over Easter. Certain people were skiing in mountains. I won't name any names, but it wasn't me. And we're back refreshed with some new content and a bit of catching up to do really, because we haven't spoken to each other for a couple of weeks. So I'm sure there's loads that we can catch up on. I'm Sarah Canning from the Property Marketing Strategists.

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

I'm Dan Smith from Student Housing Consultants

SPEAKER_01: 0:29

Thank you. And I'm Deanie Lee from the Property Marketing Strategists and you wouldn't have found me on a mountain anywhere.

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

So I think the last time we saw each other was a good few weeks ago at the Unipol conference. It was a really great event. It was the first time that Unipol had done it and it was bringing the frontline people together really in one space.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

I just thought it was a really great event and I think we probably mentioned this on our socials but it just felt like a really different agenda to a lot of the other conferences that we've been to. I really, really enjoyed the session on public policy, which I think is really important. I think one of my biggest takeaways from that is the role that student accommodation operators can have in making sure that students when they arrive in September know how to vote and where to vote and to register to vote. Yeah, I just thought it was a really breath of fresh air and people really, really trying to make a difference. The other session that really stood out was the session on disability, which again is not talked about enough. And yeah, it just really highlighted lots of things that need to be more on the agenda more and just that real student experience, the things that are going to make a difference to the end user customers, which make a difference to everyone across the sector, all stakeholders, universities, investors, developers, operators. And it was a great day, really.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47

It was the first chance, I think, Paddy Jackman has had to really showcase his impact as a new CEO of Unipol. Taking over from Martin was never going to be easy but Paddy's the perfect person to do that and I think he will breathe a breath of fresh air into Unipol which is an incredibly credible organisation representing the PBSA sector and in particular the operations side of that. So it was a real chance for Paddy to put his stamp on it and I think he did it brilliantly and I think Unipol can be really proud of what they did. This was not just a standard conference or a standard event where everyone's talking you know it's the same people saying the same things I think that was what we were all hoping it wouldn't be and so there was really good diverse content a lot of operators in the room a couple of investors as well but primarily this was about operations the student experience how can we make sure we give students the best possible experience at the best possible value as well now affordability was kind of parked slightly and deliberately and Paddy did raise that, which is fine for now. Obviously, it's something we're going to need to talk about pretty vocally fairly soon, but it was just a really good event. You're right, Dini, the standouts were the public policy chats and the disability awareness session as well. Really, really insightful and not just sort of, you know, hey, here's the problem, very much talking about the solutions and a bit of crystal ball gazing as well. But all of the panels, all of the speakers were really insightful very very useful lots of practical actions and I can't wait for more I wish they'd be quarterly if I'm being completely honest because it was the right people in the room to have a real positive impact on the student experience but I think the impact for Paddy as his first sort of big conference and Unipol's like first major conference I think was brilliant so yeah well done to Unipol and you know really good to see lots of friendly faces in the room as well

SPEAKER_02: 3:43

I think it was I know that it was deliberately not kind of investor developer led but part of me was thinking I mean like you said Deanie we were talking about disability and we were talking about non-cisgender students we were talking about kind of wider participation you know all of those things that it's important for investors and developers to understand. Do you think it was too segregated? I

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

think you'd struggle to get investors at a Unipol event. I think there is still a very much a silo attitude. There's still a separation between investment and operations. I knew this was going to be primarily operating, so I wasn't expecting it to be investor heavy. Those events is, you know, you're sort of LD events, your student housing event, your property week, your class of 2020, Opry, whatever. There's plenty of them out there. So I think that this is a good opportunity to get all the operators in the right room to start trying to lead the conversation with investors as well. And so publicizing that, talking about it on LinkedIn and other social channels, or just being able for operators to be able to go back to the investors and say, right, into the Unipol conference, we need to have a think about how we are approaching disability in PBSA, for example, and And are we appealing to them? Not just, you know, are we retrofitting things in for them once they get there? Are we actually proactively appealing to students with disability? To use just one example of one of the sessions, I think that it would be difficult to get investors there. I think there's an opportunity to do some kind of investor plenary or something along those lines. But realistically speaking, given that it was in Manchester, it's a bit of a trek, not just for investors coming out of London, but just for people to get there anyway. So I think it will probably remain operator focused for the time being. And I do think it's now on the operators to go back to their investors, whether they're vertically integrated or third party or whatever, and say, right, this is what I learned. This is how we can put all of these lessons into practice, put all of these actions into practice. This is what it will mean for the bottom line. So I do think the onus is on the operators there rather than Unipol needing to appeal to investors a bit more personally. I don't know. What do you feel, Deanie or Sarah?

SPEAKER_01: 5:53

Well, I was just thinking actually about this when you mentioned about the affordability piece is that actually, as an operator, where do you have your influence over affordability? So therefore, that question needs to be put to the investors and the developers in the case of how you're building it. So I guess there's and then my thought process went on from there is that to your point, there's an influence point now is actually if you're collating this information as an operator, if you're working with investors and developers, it's like, well, this we've learned. So before you go and build something, can you just take some of this into consideration? So there's definitely an onus on the sector. around kind of understanding, learning and bringing all those ideas together. So actually what we are building is the right thing for both customers and users and investors and developers to make returns. So I think it's where do we bridge that gap? It might not be at these conferences, but it's certainly through those relationships that we have to make sure that we are raising those issues.

SPEAKER_02: 6:48

Yeah, no, I agree with all of that. And it may be part of the reason why it felt so balanced and open is because the room of operators felt part of a supportive network of people that actually maybe having those investors and developers in the room wouldn't have created such such openness got everyone workshopping and we use word clouds on screens we use polls we did lots of things that we hadn't done before it didn't all run completely smoothly let's be honest but it was quite fun we got what we tried to get We did. And what we tried to get the room really to do is to kind of think about how to create community that's not just in your building. So we had one group that were workshopping creating community within a flat. We had one group that were workshopping the building and then we had another group that were workshopping how to build community with your wider city. And yeah, I think the building group probably reverted to type really of kind of all of the events that they do and do quite successfully. Whereas the kind of opposite ends of the spectrum, creating community within a flat and creating community within the wider city had to work a little bit harder but yeah it was it was interesting and it was I think just nice to give people the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas and the groups that we were facilitating had some fantastic ideas and those conversations carried on into into the break afterwards so like you Dan I think we're you know would be super keen to be involved in another one yeah potentially you know more regularly

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

than once a year and just to add to that I think doing those sessions I think what really strongly for me came out of those sessions was actually having those universities around the table because a lot of the different ideas and new ideas were coming from those university participants which as we've said before we don't always get enough of that opportunity to kind of work with our university partners in that way so I think there's a lot of learnings from that in the session that I was hosting.

SPEAKER_00: 8:32

I think that's that's where Unipol again is quite unique in that there's such a reach into the universities too more so than you know a lot of the other events so I do think that that was just felt really unique and and your session was brilliant because it was interactive and it got everyone working together a lot lot of collaboration with people that wouldn't ordinarily have thought about working together. So I do think that was definitely worthwhile. Some other really good sessions, student crowd did a great session too. And like I said, the public policy piece was really interesting. It's not saying anything, Ed wasn't saying anything that we didn't already know about what the government might potentially do with visas, international student visas and international numbers, etc. But it's just nice to have a lot of those opinions kind of reaffirmed. Yeah, it was just a really super positive event. I would highly recommend any operator in particular or university looking at that for next year and maybe we sort of say to investors it's worth coming along to see what your operators are really talking about and what the universities want as well because those forward thinking investors that want to innovate and don't just want to build the same old stock for the Chinese students that they always have I think there's a real opportunity there to fully understand what students want and obviously you guys have got some more research on exactly what students want but I think this was a really good opportunity to show that in conference format. So yeah, well done, Unipol.

SPEAKER_02: 9:52

Well, on that topic, we have been quite busy. We've just launched a report on the international perspective of student accommodation. And we surveyed 2,000 students globally to find out their wants, their needs, their thoughts. And we've collated it into a big report, which has been distributed and continues to be distributed around the sector with people that have registered for it. And the response has been brilliant. You go, we're all part in it and University Living were our data partners and we couldn't have asked for more supportive partners in that and it enabled us to for the first time really in the sector is look at the product and that's kind of always our aim with this big research is we know that operators do a fantastic job of asking their own residents about customer service but what we really wanted to focus on is the product and how it may be a different product what the students want versus what what's been built and really for us we want the legacy to be the future you know have an eye on what's being built for the future student and in order to do that you've got to ask young people and because the developers investors operators you know consultants or everyone they're just not not the audience so we've got some really interesting takeaways we won't share them all here because we want you to download the report but i guess from a legacy point of view we want people to read it we want people to have difficult conversations we want people to challenge what's been built and we you know we do that all the time we're a bit annoying we like to prod and poke and and challenge the status quo but I mean Deanie what what do you think the initial kind of response is from the research what do you think the legacy could

SPEAKER_01: 11:35

be? Well I think and as we've said this before I think so much of the market is built around what has worked before and it's full so it's there's very much a mentality of build it and they will come and I think actually what much of the research that we've done over the years is highlighting is that there is different models out there. There is different ways to build. There is propensity for students to consider living in different ways, whether that's shared bathrooms, shared bedrooms, shared working areas. There's lots of different opportunities. And I think that, I mean, in any house, there's not a one size fits all approach. And generally in the housing market, we do have a one size fits all approach. But I think there is opportunities to develop more for more diversity of product, for more different price ranges. for more different people to get what they want out of their building. I mean, you know, we've always talked about our research that every time we ask the question, gyms comes up as 50% of people want a gym and everyone claps their hands and goes, yeah, brilliant, 50% of people want a gym. And we say, but there's 50% of people that don't. So stop patting yourselves on the back. So I think it's that idea that actually everyone wants something different. And we don't have the answers. And I think this is the thing that we're always saying is we're not saying take our research and build what students say, because that's not going to be pragmatic or practical or commercial. But there is opportunities out there. And I think with the right team and the right architect and the right people behind you, I think we can make real headways into innovation. And I think that's why we're urging people to take this data because we're providing it for free alongside the help of Ugo University Living. So I think. yeah read it digest it work with your architects work with your operators work with your partners and let's see what's the sector we can deliver and of course if you want to come speak to us about it then we can help

SPEAKER_00: 13:21

too great piece of work to have to have done and i think that i take a lot of heart from speaking to some of these operators and seeing what they're putting out there that some of the biggest and best operators at the moment are really having a look at their products and they're not just doing it you know from a perspective of in five years time we need to make this purely future-proof because we're going to have more indian students or more domestics and or whatever it might be, they are very much looking at it as how can we give the students what they want? So talking with Aaron Bailey last week from Yugo, he's effectively in charge of building for Yugo and GSA across it globally. And he was genuinely pushing me as hard as he possibly could on what do I need to be building for students on top of what I already know? How can you add value to what we're doing? And of course, you know, you know, Aaron, and you know, Yugo, and they are very focused on that. Unite R2, their There's a lot of money that both of those are putting into refurbs at the minute. And I think you've got to make sure that your properties, if you're building now, that they're flexible and they are future-proof. You've got to be able to adapt them. So if your demographic changes, your cohort changes, you can then move the spaces around, whether it needs to be more co-working or more social spaces. Whatever it might be, you have to have those sort of flexible spaces. So that's something that obviously I would always advise, having that flexibility. But it's really good to see that the top operators. And it doesn't matter what size they are. You can have small and medium operators as well that are very focused on what their students want. They're looking at the data. And it's great that you've got University Living on board as well, because you get a huge international perspective there. They're not just Indian students from University Living. And you go in so many different countries. So really good partners, I think, to provide a really accurate snapshot of what's going on in terms of what students actually want to see from their PBSA buildings, rather than the typical sort of echo chamber that you can find with 60-year-old white guys in a boardroom deciding what students are going to want in 5, 10, 15, 20 years. So that's the real opportunity, I think, to get this data, take it on board. understand what it means practically for building or retrofitting or refurbing property and then putting it into practice with a good operational strategy so it's a good bit of work I know that a lot's gone into it and I think that that's the right they're the right partners to have to have worked with on it too so yeah kudos to to both of you for putting that together and I just hope that it's used by as many developers and investors in particular to fully understand what students want as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 15:55

Interestingly though I had a discussion I bumped into an investor the week we actually launched it. And he was saying, well done. And he enjoyed reading it. And I said, well, can I actually meet with you? I'd really like to kind of pick your brains on some of it and delve into some of it. And I said, for example, you know, there's a lot of evidence that shared rooms and shared bathrooms could create an entry level product in a building. And he just went, don't talk to me about shared rooms. I'm not interested in shared rooms. Shared rooms are horrible. We can't sell them. And he told me the operator that they use. And so I then went on said operators website to look for these shared rooms that apparently they can't shift. And I couldn't find them. So that either told me that they were sold out, or it told me that they're not marketing them effectively. And, you know, as marketeers, I think that's the angle that Dini and I immediately took with that conversation is you've got to believe in the product. You know, the operator's got to market it in the right way and not hide away from it because it's, there's lots of evidence that actually that product would suit a lot of people. And for some, if you get the price right, that could be the tipping point of them going to university or not going to university at all. If the only thing they can afford is a shared room, they will take the shared room. And I was disappointed that the investor was so dismissive, but I was more disappointed that that it felt like it was the operator who hadn't fully got behind it and wasn't giving it the best shot that they could at filling these shared rooms. I mean, I've got ideas coming out. out of my my ears about how to market it there's so many great messages that you can put with that and it's probably a bit like the the conversation about accessible rooms that we were having at unipol people are hiding them they're not talking about them and then they say well there's no demand well there's no demand if you're not giving people the opportunity to inquire about them or book them and if you're hiding them for for some reason then you're never going to get to that point of proving the concept

SPEAKER_00: 18:01

i wonder if that is an image thing so I laughed, Sarah, because obviously I was there for that conversation too. And so I know the operator full well. I actually think it may well be a bit of a systems problem that they're struggling with potentially. But is it maybe that it's a bit of an image problem and that they feel like by advertising non-ensuite rooms or 2DOs or whatever... the more affordable products. So that's bastardizing their sort of mid-range products. Like, do you think that might be the case that they're hiding those or not marketing them effectively because they feel like it will sort of lessen the brand of that property in particular, or maybe even of the brand as a whole?

SPEAKER_01: 18:41

I think there's probably that, but I think there's probably the age-old problem that we haven't built these types of rooms since probably the 1960s, 1980s at a push. So they're all old, they're all not looked after, they're all poorly designed and they're not a equivalent to the new modern rooms that we're building. So therefore everyone thinks, well, it doesn't work. And it's kind of like, well, no, if you're comparing a 2020 brand new kind of on-seat room to a 1960s shared room, shared bathroom, it's not an equivalent thing you're comparing. I think, you know, we haven't, and I think this comes down to that innovation piece, is that we haven't tried something new. And there are a few, and Sarah and I were having this conversation this week, but there are a few good design options out there of twin rooms, of shared bathrooms, but they're so in the minority that no one talks about them. You know, no one markets them. No one kind of says, well, actually, there is a success here. I mean, we held a focus group once with one of the students on our youth forum, and she was actually sitting in a twin room that was a mezzanine. So there was a room upstairs, a room downstairs. It was a twin room. openly said I wouldn't be here if I didn't have this option and that was a university-based room so there are models out there and they are working and they are selling but I think we've got so stuck in our ways of oh those old horrible things don't sell no one wants to live in that but we've We're not brave enough, which we always talk about, is we need to be a bit braver. We're not brave enough to actually go, let's try something new because it might possibly sell. And, you know, and the data is stacking up that we're doing that it will actually sell. There is a market for it.

SPEAKER_00: 20:14

We've been shooting fish in a barrel, to use an idiom. It's been so easy to sell these beds for, you know, the last few years, post-COVID in particular. And actually, even through COVID, you know, average occupancy was roughly 86%. Well, it was for Unite anyway, during COVID. So that's... That's still pretty damn good. Now, why would you necessarily need to change the products? Well, from what I can see over the course of the next five to 10 years, we're going to have a huge amount of students really struggling to afford university, not just the international cohort that's coming in with more Indian students. I think there's going to be a real issue for domestic students affording university. Therefore, accommodation, they're going to need a lot cheaper accommodation than we've currently got. So that has to change. Something has to change. We've got to look at our room makeup and what that does. and it can't just be you know investors sticking their fingers in their ears and saying la la la we don't want to listen because we've been filling these beds as they currently stand for so long studios or clusters and all-on-suites when you know I think that that has to change at some point fairly soon I don't think it's going to be as easy in a lot of locations this year as it has been for the last five years I think there's going to be some real real pain points for certain operators that are exposed to some of those secondary universities and secondary cities, because I'm not convinced on the international numbers, as I've said before. But I just think that we have to be really open about what we're building and why. And what that's going to look like in five to 10 years time, when any investor with a reasonable hold period is going to look to sell on, you know, it's going to be five, 10 years. I think gone are the days where it was, there's a bit of a flip culture where investors will hold it for a couple of years and then sell on. I think there's a bit more of a sort of medium term hold. So they have to be thinking, how can we make sure that we have future proof buildings that are affordable for as many students as we possibly can? And There's definitely ways to do that. You just have to look at the data, look at the reports and start to really ask the students what they need. But yeah, it'd be good to get more investors in on those conversations with the developers to try and make the numbers stack up better than they currently do because at the minute we're seeing such a high proportion of studios being built in new developments that it's just because they're the that's the only thing that makes the numbers stack up for that development because of all of the increasing costs in every area i don't need to go into details on that

SPEAKER_01: 22:45

no and i think actually just to add to that is on my ski trip this week actually someone spoke at me on the lift even they were talking about the cost of going to university and the cost of accommodation and how expensive it was compared to him being at university in the 90s so I think sometimes we get stuck in this echo chamber that we think oh everyone's just talking about affordability but they're still selling so therefore we don't need to do anything about it but actually this is a wider conversation beyond just the sector and you know it's kind of our generation that's talking about it that haven't got kids yet at university but will be going to university and we've spoken about it in the past as well there's this competition of apprenticeships as well for degrees so yeah I think you're right Dan I think there's a lot of shift and a lot of and it'll be interesting to see how the rest of this year goes and the impacts of that because hopefully it'll start to show that there is options to be a bit more diverse and innovate a bit and try some other things because we've really got to make sure that young people can still go to university.

SPEAKER_02: 23:46

On one other topic about product that we've been talking a bit about recently is what can shared living learn from co-working spaces? I think we all traipse around the country and have to find random places to work and we've all experienced working in co-working spaces. And I think what strikes me particularly is how open they are. You don't really have this traditional reception desk we've seen ones where people are standing at kind of poser tables or there's some kind of like restaurant bar kind of counter and you go and register there but there just doesn't seem to be these barriers and boundaries that we seem to put in place in a lot of shared living spaces and it feels quite dated now I think some particularly student accommodation buildings I think some of the newer BTR and co-living buildings and then co-working spaces are are so much more open and they feel less of a barrier, less security conscious. And then we go back into kind of student accommodation. And we've did some market research in various cities over the last couple of weeks. You can't even get in them. You're still expected to buzz, even when you can see the person sat at reception, which is absolutely not creating a warm, homely environment. But co-working... And co-living really seems to do that. What do you both think about it?

SPEAKER_01: 25:04

Yeah, no, I agree. I think there is that, there's that freshness of going into a co-working space and you can get in, you can go to the space, you can see what spaces you can work. It feels welcoming. And yet in student accommodation, we do have this barrier and we do have this kind of, you can't go here, you can't go there. So I think there is a lot to be learned. And I think as there's more online learning, there's more remote working that actually helps There's a lot more opportunity with those spaces. And I think, again, our research time and time again talks about the different spaces people want to study in. And actually, are we making as wide, flexible spaces as possible? And how do we get more of the community into those spaces? Because they can be used by lots of different people, friends. But we've got to make it both safe and secure and accessible for all.

SPEAKER_00: 25:51

Yeah, I'm a big fan of open plan. I like flexible spaces that you can partition as and how you want. When I was at NIDO, we noticed that our students were doing a lot more group work and we didn't really have the most suitable furniture for them. So we set about getting big co-working benches and we spoke to the universities as well and said, you know, is this the case that you have more group work now or is it still very much individual study? And there was a big increase in the amount of group work that was, you know, group projects, that were being dished out to the students. So we adjusted our product accordingly, built a co-working space up on the mezzanine, and it had about 30 desks there. Really, really popular. Always super busy. We could then move those desks out of the way to make sure that we had space for big social events, you know, around various different cultural festivals. And it just made sure that the space was flexible. We gave the students exactly what they were asking for. And we'd spoken to the universities to discuss what kind of projects were being given out. And that really worked nicely. And I think that Nido West Hampstead, which is now IQ West Hampstead, is a really good example of it. I remember when we, I first walked into Chapter Spitalfields with the turnstiles and the reception there and it just, it felt, even though that was previously a Nido building, it felt just a little bit standoffish. You had to get buzzed through or you needed a card and it just meant that there was minimal interaction from the community, which is by design because of where that building is. But when you've got a building that you want to become a bit more part of a community or a community hub, and you want to encourage students to bring their friends so they don't have to sign them in or whatever it might be, that's when having an open plan reception area where effectively front of house team are accessible, but aren't just constantly sitting behind a desk. I think that's where there's a really good opportunity for pbsa to learn from hospitality some of the hotels in central london like zedwell really really open plan you just check in on a on an ipad but there's always people around to help out i like that concept and then moving on to actually students using it co-working space alongside so Social space. That's great. Most students tend to not need silence these days. They're all working with headphones in. So it doesn't have to be completely partitioned. You don't need a box room. Sometimes that's good for presentations and events and some group projects. But it's typically I've seen the best use of space with very open plan. co-working and social spaces. That's my take on how co-working can be applied into PBSA. I've worked at plenty of WeWorks. I've still got a membership for a couple of co-working spaces. And they're all open plan with a few phone booths here and there. And I think that that's something that PBSA can learn from and should be implementing as well through development into refurbs as well.

SPEAKER_02: 28:57

I was working in the X and Y workspace at Unity Place in Milton Keynes a couple of weeks ago and there are areas that people have rented office space and that is key card only you know they're people that have paid for their whole businesses to be there in proper offices but the actual kind of co-working space was just free flow and it was just you know you could sit in so many different places one half of it had music on the other half didn't there was lots of places to eat both within the co-working and in the wider building which was built by Santander and you It just meant that, and you could see that openness, you could see that space. So we've talked a lot about kind of neurodivergency and how that will impact the buildings of the future. But a lot of people suffer from anxiety if they can't see what's behind a door, they don't know who's there, they don't know what they're going to find. So breaking down these barriers and having zones, you know, and these zones were mixed up with bookshelves or with big planters or with different flooring or with, you know, different kind of I guess sort of screens so it was zoned out it wasn't like one massive space but you could see it all which takes away kind of all of that anxiety you know you know you're not going to walk into a room and everyone's working quietly and then they're going to look up at you because the door made a noise and they're all working there's none of that going on and I do think that particularly PBSA needs to take a bit of a leaf out of that and learn from co-living and co-working and the last topic we were going to talk about today is is it me or are we seeing more planning approvals. I feel like LinkedIn is filled with quite a lot of great news. We've secured planning for X, Y, Z. Is it my imagination? What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_00: 30:45

I think there has been, and I saw a stat, I'm pretty sure it was Stu Rents that put it out there more recently, that yes, there are more planning applications being put in, but there are not necessarily more approvals. Student accommodation is... still very difficult to gain planning approval for. And we're still miles off of where we should be in terms of the number of beds that we are short and the number of beds that are gaining approval or that we're actually building right now. That spades in the ground and planning for the future. So, yes, I think there are more applications, but not necessarily more approvals. And we still need a hell of a lot more beds. My concern is that Nottingham have clearly opened the floodgates in terms of the planning departments. And there's some big numbers being put up there. Leeds have done the same thing. Both of those cities are showing, there was an article the other day saying that parts of Nottingham and parts of Leeds are showing signs of saturation. Now, that's a bit, you know, that's a bit of a stretch to say that those markets are saturated. But equally, there are definitely parts and there will definitely be price points where there will be too many beds there. And so there will be occupancy challenges there this year. And I know there already were last year. So it's a case of can we get that? Can we get the councils to open the floodgates in Durham, in York, in Edinburgh? Glasgow looks to have turned a bit of a corner as well. A lot more planning applications going in there. I think the universities are digging in and working very closely with the council up there. It's still pretty difficult to build. So they've just got to be in the right places. You can't keep building in Sheffield, in Coventry, in Nottingham, in Leith, in Colchester. There's numerous other places that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole right now. That's not to say that you couldn't build in those places. But as a general rule, if someone came to me and said Coventry, I'd say absolutely not. But there are still some good assets out there. There are some good locations out there, even in those cities. It's just very difficult to get that planning from what I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_01: 32:49

And is that planning just around PBSA or is it just... planning in general because I mean I've spoken to architects working across residential and it's the same issue that they just it's just taking so long to get planning approvals through and I guess with an election looming is that going to cause even more delays or is is it just backlogged and you know what how do we how do we change this?

SPEAKER_00: 33:14

We're woefully underfunded and under-resourced as you know with all of our planning departments they're councillors and local residents hold far too much power, in my opinion, against BTR and PBSA developments in particular. There's very much a NIMBY, not in my backyard, mindset against PBSA and creating student ghettos and And I think that's a real problem that needs better communication, better education, and developers in particular listening to the concerns of the local community. And there are some great developers, great architects, great planning consultants doing that really effectively. And there are some that are just completely ignoring that and trying to bulldoze a development through. And that's where they're going to fall foul. They may get a certain amount of a way through the process, and then it will be scuppered at the last minute because there'll be too many objections and the counsellor will be thinking purely about getting re-elected next year and not about actually this is going to benefit the university, which benefits the economy, which is going to help integrate these communities. So it's a real challenge all in all.

SPEAKER_02: 34:25

The other thing is that because it's taking so long, these Buildings are out of date before anyone's even put a spade in the ground. And I think the ones that I'm talking about that I'm seeing for planning now, they're probably going to be... 27, 28 or even 28, 29, you know, we don't know anything about those students yet because those students are 14. Yeah. You know, so that's very different to what they think they're building for now, which is the current 18, 19, 20 year olds. You know, we're then moving into Gen Alpha to coin a phase and we just don't know what that is. So the delay in it is exacerbating the problem because not only... The point that those planning applications have been made for Leeds and Nottingham, it probably felt like a great idea. By the time they've received planning, not such a great idea because everybody else has also received planning. And anything can happen with those universities over the next three, four years. So that's, I think it comes back to kind of the research that we talk about, not just our research, but research as well, is that my safe bet would be to design and build and invest in something for domestic students. There's always going to be domestic students. The other students, it's going to be volatile. And we don't know what's going to happen globally, you know, that we have no idea that COVID was on the horizon. And we have no idea what our government was going to do to put off international students coming here, but it's happened. Whereas there will always be domestic students. So if we can create a product that meets the economics of a domestic student locations and a product that just feels like, It's in safe hands and that time delay won't impact it so much.

SPEAKER_00: 36:18

The major issue there is that we're still building far too many studios because that's the only thing that makes the numbers stack up for certain developments. And developers will just continue to do that. And so will investors to make sure that they can get a development off the ground. That's not going to change anytime soon. But... I would like to think that there are some forward-thinking investors and developers out there that will be aligning themselves and their buildings with the cohort in the next 10 years, which is going to be domestic students and more price-sensitive international students. When you look at all of the potential trends and what we've seen post-COVID, but also pre-COVID, with where the geopolitical situations are, our current political situation and what may happen with a Labour government, It's all pointing in one direction, and that is that we need more affordable stock. We need to be appealing to domestic students, to Indian students, to a diverse range of international students in particular, rather than let's build studios because we know that the Chinese love them. That number is not increasing. So how do we make sure that investors and developers listen? It's very, very difficult when those Excel sheets with non-studio products just don't stack up. there's still quite a lot of work to do there it'll be really interesting to see how this year's numbers play out and also what happens with the general election as well but that's an entire episode in itself so

SPEAKER_02: 37:52

well I've made a couple of notes of things to come back to and thank you everybody for listening thank you hope you all had a great break over Easter and we're glad that you have come back to listen to us let us know if we haven't covered something that you want us to delve into if there's any burn questions about the sector that you've got and we will catch you again soon for episode 10.