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| Sunday Sun 11 Feb 07 |
Residents from a posh suburb are seeking legal restrictions on the number of properties bought by developers for student accommodation.
The Fern Avenue Residents' Group from Jesmond, Newcastle, is looking to get locals to voluntarily sign up to a covenant preventing them selling their houses to developers.
The plan follows years of tension between residents and the large and increasing student population they claim make their lives a misery.
Grace Hodge, co-founder of the group, said: "At the moment we are still exploring how it would work legally. We don't have a problem with students and we welcome them as long as they are well behaved.
"However, we are concerned about property developers pushing up the house prices so families can't afford to buy here.
"The developers buy these wonderful houses and then turn them into multiple lets for students. If this continues locals will get fed up and just want out. The only way to stop this happening is to draw up a covenant on our houses forbidding the house being sold to developers.
"Otherwise we will end up getting outnumbered by students and being taken over."
Jesmond is popular with students because it is close to a range of facilities and within walking distance of Newcastle city centre.
Residents' concerns will be shared by those in other parts of the region where there are concentrated student populations, such as the areas around Durham and York.
This huge influx - students now make up 35 per cent of Jesmond's inhabitants - has seen an explosion of bars, restaurants and takeaways - and also complaints.
Residents claim that having large numbers of students brings litter, noise and vandalism problems to what was once a quiet area.
To help ease the concerns of residents Newcastle City Council plans to build 6000 student bedrooms in different areas of the city.
Grace added: "Many developers don't look after their properties properly and this drags the whole area down.
"Some of the gardens are deplorable and full of litter. But as long as the rent is coming in they're just not bothered."
A spokesman from Newcastle University said: "We haven't been approached by the residents so we are unable to comment on these proposals yet."
Created on /22/02/2007 09:11 PM by pcooper
Updated on /22/02/2007 09:12 PM by pcooper
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