The country is in turmoil. Every part of life simply seems to be too expensive. You know whose life was already too expensive? Students. With student loans often offering hardly enough to live on, discounts and charity shops are some of the many life hacks that our future professionals live by.
There is no life hack when it comes to rent. Students need a place to live, and a majority of student houses work as all inclusive packages where the housing company charge a larger amount to cover all bills. As the prices skyrocket, landlords are forced to change rent to cover huge electricity and gas bills, but it isn’t always that simple for those students financially struggling.
We found out how this has directly affected students in Gloucestershire and how they feel about it.
The average monthly energy bill for a house hold in the UK was £1339 in 2021. The Energy Price Guarantee has been put in place to protect the British public from obscene rises in prices by energy companies and puts a cap on bills at £2500 for the year. This is still almost double the price of bills the previous years.
This situation really has come to bite down on everybody but particularly students because it isn’t quite as straight forward for them. Everybody is in a different position however landlords have to make a decision on what to do. Student housing companies across Cheltenham have been left struggling over the last two weeks due to the constant changes being made by the Government regarding the energy cap. Jeremy Hunts changes to Liz Truss’s original energy plans has sent companies such as Honor, Carlain and Eden Properties scrambling to make sure they make appropriate adjustments.
Chris Honor of Honor Properties explained the dilemma he and his colleagues are in as he said “it is so difficult because everything is changing all the time and we need to make a decision that is fair for our students but also protects ourselves”. The constant changes to policy has left his company unsure of what to do. What Chris was certain of though was that “prices next year are going to have to seriously increase to ensure bills are covered”. With the current way these student housing companies are being run, there is panic over whether it is the way forward.
Carlain Property, another huge student housing agency in Cheltenham shared similar concerns to that of Honor. Their founder Andrew Laing spoke about how unsure his company can be about what they plan to do with everything changing so rapidly. He reacted to the U-turn by saying that “we budgeted for the cap and aimed to reflect it in our costs but that has gone out of the window”. What he could confirm was that they intend on making as little changes as possible but are warning current students of potential charges and will increase the rent next year.
Students are struggling to support themselves and threat of costs only makes the current state of the world scarier. Despite the uncertainty of landlord's decisions, there is most definitely an understanding that we are all in this together.
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