Purpose-built Student Accommodation London Plan Guidance

Publication type: London Plan Guidance

Publication status: Adopted

Publication date: Wednesday 20 November 2024

The Purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) London Plan Guidance (LPG) provides advice on how to apply London Plan Policy H15 to best meet London’s needs. This guidance applies to a specialist form of housing designed and managed for students. This typically comprises a mixture of flats for 6-8 students with shared living spaces, and larger studio flats, plus additional communal social spaces and other facilities.

As well as providing students with a place to live, PBSA can play an important role in alleviating pressures on the wider private rental sector. Indirectly its provision also helps underpin London’s higher education sector as a global player, and the wider knowledge economy of the city.

The LPG sets out detailed advice on siting, designing and developing such housing, including balancing it with other housing types. It aims to ensure that these developments are designed and managed to be of good quality, safe and inclusive and integrated into their neighbourhood. The guidance is aimed at those designing PBSA schemes and decision-makers assessing them as part of the planning application process.

The London Plan 2021 recognises that good growth requires careful cultivation, balancing competing pressures and driving up the quality of development of buildings and surrounding spaces. There is considerable market interest in delivering PBSA in the wake of significant increases in students living and studying in our city. However, Londoners also need other types of housing, with the need for conventional affordable housing particularly great.

Policy H15 includes important mechanisms to ensure proportionate PBSA provision, and to deliver affordable student accommodation. It also requires that planners ensure that PBSA contributes to mixed and inclusive neighbourhoods. However, it can remain challenging to navigate different interpretations of what this means in practice, slowing down the delivery of these important objectives. In addition, the housing design standards and policies do not apply to this kind of accommodation. The guidance helps fill that gap and to provide that consistency to ensure we create places that meet different needs and provide opportunities for all.