Tuesday 16-09-2025 - 08:53

On the 18^th of August 2025, GCU Students’ Association hosted the National Housing Campaign organising day, welcoming 15 student officers from 11 collages and universities in Scotland. The purpose of the day was to organise a campaigning strategy as we move into stage three of the Housing (Scotland Bill).

But what is the Housing (Scotland) Bill and why should I care?????

The Housing Bill makes changes to the law in Scotland, including tenant protections, preventing homelessness and long-term rent controls for private tenancies. It is currently going through the Scottish Parliament, so the time has never been better to campaign for improved student housing!!

Currently, the Bill is good as it includes: long-term rent controls for private tenancies, new rights to keep pets and decorate rented homes and stronger protection against eviction. However, the Bill does not go far enough for students!! The Bill does not cover: stricter regulations on Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA’S), rent controls for PBSA’s, student specific rights, not scrapping guarantors, council tax exemption for the first few months after graduation and the definition of the tenant is to be changed to include all students. Read more about the Bill here!

So…what are you going to do about it?

The National Student Housing Campaign was created by a collective of student officers around Scotland who are passionate about fixing student housing. A strategy was created to model the three stages of Bills passing through parliament. In stage one and two, student officers lobbied MSP’s, rallied outside parliament and submitted an open letter to the Housing Minister (and much more!) Some big wins were achieved such as more requirements on the government to implement rent control recommendations and PBSA regulations. However, there is still more to be done. We want more student specific amendments, the current amendments to stay in the Bill and, of course, the Bill to be passed!!

So that takes us back to the campaign day…

On the 18^th, we met at GCU to discuss how we are going to campaign during stage three of the Bill which will go through parliament soon. Throughout the day we broke into groups to work through our ideas, share experience and brainstorm some out of the box tactics.

The main things we discussed were:

 

• The issues student face in housing
• Our vision for student housing
• Our priorities
• Student mobilisation
• Scottish elections
• Tactics (public meetings, social media, rallies etc.)
   

It was great to have productive conversations with officers across Scotland to gain different perspectives, ideas and experiences. This was especially productive as we had a diverse range of officers and institutions present: we had international and home students, undergraduate and postgraduate students, an age range between 17-27, universities and colleges as well as representation from across the country. This gave us a really rich discussion of student experiences of housing.

Some of our visions for student housing and goals are:

 

• Safe and affordable housing for students
• Contract regulations specific to PBSAs & student housing (such as making it easier to get out of contracts/notice period)
• Improve legal rights for lodgers
• Prevent discrimination against students as student renters
• More student voices in our campaign!!

What did we achieve?

 

• Clear objectives for stage 3 of the campaign
• Clear influencing strategy for the political parties
• A better understanding of tactics and how we can mobilise students
   

Overall, we want to create a large student movement fighting for housing rights, especially as there is a Scottish election coming up. Student support is key and we want to show that our voice is important.

You can follow the campaign on Instagram @studenthousingcampaignscot for updates on how you can get involved!! If you want to chat about GCU specific housing, the student housing crisis, the housing crisis in general of if you have any ideas/want to get involved please reach out to Student President Tom Tom or VP GSBS Eilidh, we would LOVE to have a yap about this!!

You can always contact any of your Full Time Officers at:

Tom Tom (Student President): president@GCUstudents.co.uk
Chinaenyenwa Ugo (Vice President SHLS): VP.SHLS@GCUstudents.co.uk
Eilidh Stewart (Vice President GSBS): VP.GSBS@GCUstudents.co.uk
Hamza Siddiqi (Vice President SSE): VP.SSE@GCUstudents.co.uk