WITH regard to the report on student homes (The Press, March 10), Coun Steve Galloway’s comment regarding short-term tenants does not apply because once these homes become home of multiple occupation they continue from year to year as student lets.

If Coun Galloway thinks there is no great problem with this situation, he should visit areas such as Badger Hill and Tang Hall and see how they have changed over the past ten years in comparison with his own area, where there are very few such houses.

Between 2004 and 2006, as chairman of Osbaldwick Parish Council, I attended many meetings of the Heslington East Community Forum, which discussed the extension of the University of York.

The potential “studentification” of the area was raised, and the student union executive expressed a wish for 100 per cent on site accommodation provision for the increased student numbers.

Other questions raised related to whether it was possible to demand that accommodation on site could be made a condition of building consent; whether new accommodation would pick up the shortfall of accommodation on the existing campus; and whether it would be possible to stipulate what the rent level of any new on campus accommodation would be.

Janet Ford, from the university, stated at the time that neither the university nor City of York Council could force students to live on site if they did not want to, and that a decisive factor in determining where students chose to live was the relative costs of accommodation.

These relative costs are not known and it would be interesting to know what they are.

Malcolm Kettlestring, Yew Tree Mews, Osbaldwick, York.