Roger Cornwell

There is no need to convert any more family homes into student lets. There is already a small surplus of student lets and over 1,600 places are in the pipeline for new purpose-built student accommodation blocks. If more student lets are needed, then an acceptable approach is to convert the upper floors of City centre shops.

There is an “Article 4 Direction” which covers all of Neville’s Cross north of the Cock o’ the North Roundabout, and most of the rest of the Parish. This means that applications to convert to HMOs need planning permission. Such applications usually fail in the Viaduct area because more than 10% of properties there are already student lets. But landlords are now buying up properties in North End and Mount Oswald, and applying to convert them. I will support local residents seeking to block them. This may mean using a range of planning policies.

A current proposal is for nine student HMOs to house 52 students at Rowanwood. I drafted part of the Parish objection, using calculations from Ordnance Survey data to disprove assertions made by the applicant. While this application seems likely to fail, we must be alert to it returning in a revised form and be ready to counter it.

Planning decisions shape where we live and how we live. This is especially true in the City of Durham, with its World Heritage Site, world-class University and permanent residents. Balancing these competing needs is a challenge.

I see the job as encouraging good proposals that will benefit the City while stopping the bad ones. Unfortunately there are those who see maximising their profit as the sole aim. This applies particularly to student landlords who buy up family homes and try to cram in as many students as possible.

These are the live issues:

• I chaired the Committee that drew up the Neighbourhood Plan which was adopted in 2021. This contains policies that go beyond those in the County Durham Plan, and these have been used to refuse unsuitable planning applications. The Neighbourhood Plan will need to be updated in within the next four years and I see that as a task I would be a part of.
• The County Durham Plan, which was adopted in 2020, is to be replaced. This new County Durham Plan will shape how planning decisions are made in the next decade and longer. It is essential that the Parish has its say because we need to keep and strengthen the policies that have controlled the expansion of student lets and improved the quality of local housing.
• The Government has set aim at Green Belt land and wants to allow houses to be built on it. This may be needed elsewhere in the country, but County Durham has plenty of suitable land without needing to invade the Green Belt. The Parish Council needs to say this.

The University is very much a mixed blessing. I celebrate having a world-class university in Durham, with several departments in the top ten world wide. I welcome the diversity and the cultural life it brings. However, it is already too large and must not expand any further. Achieving this is not going to be easy, but that is no reason not to try. The University’s current strategy only covers the period up to 2027, so a new one is expected. If this involves a move to more post-graduate students and fewer undergraduates I would welcome that, but not an increase in overall student numbers.

I am a member of the Durham University and Residents Forum and through that I have been a member of a working party that has been revising the standard of conduct for students living outside college. This code has not been updated since 2014 and is now well out of date. The new code emphasises the need for students to be good neighbours, to keep noise down especially after 11pm, to get rubbish and recycling right and not to bring cars to Durham unless necessary. A survey conducted by the Students’ Union showed that these concerns were shared by many students themselves.

The quality of student accommodation varies widely and some student lets are dim, cramped and damp. Some landlords have been subdviding family homes to create more bedrooms, though by insisting on the space standards introduced in the County Durham Plan this has been limited. The Parish Council should continue to urge the County to extend HMO licensing to small HMOs, which would give added protection.

I found out via a Freedom of Information Request that the new virtual parking system had been introduced without an Equality Impact Assessment. The impact it has had on older residents, and those with disabilities (both “protected characteristics”) has been disproportionate, especially when arranging visitor scratch cards or their virtual equivalent. The system has been designed on the assumption that its users all have smart phones, or at least computers that are switched on all the time. This is of course not the case. The Parish Council should be pressing for urgent revisions, and if necessary should invoke the Equality Act.