The city of Edinburgh has been home to thousands of students every year for decades. During this time, it has faced new beginnings and remodels to accommodate the burgeoning student population which the city has been able to adapt to.
However, one particular place is fighting against it. Leith is a small town just outside the city centre and is connected by the Leith Walk. The town still has strong shipping roots and has never volunteered to be the new hub of student activity. Yet private student accommodation is now beginning attempts to go further than the city centre and has set eyes on Leith for their new buildings.
Leith walk currently has three private accommodations that the university offer on their accommodation website: Shrubhill, Murano, and Haddington Place. These places prove to be very popular as the rooms are modern, come with an ensuite and boast a good location in New Town. The top of the road has popular destinations like the St. James Quarter and The Playhouse, as well as Calton Hill where you can get a stunning view of almost all of New Town but towards the bottom of the road, heading towards Leith, it begins to look like the old Leith Walk that our parents can remember. Although Leith Walk has been going through the process of modernisation, or gentrification as some may see it, for roughly five years, it still has the reputation of being dangerous at night and many students are advised not to walk alone after it gets dark.
Student accommodation plans were submitted to the City of Edinburgh Council at the beginning of this year for a building on Pitt Street in Leith. The council rejected it due to warnings from residents that the architectural style of the building “fails to draw upon positive characteristics” and other worries that were proposed. Many Leith locals don’t want big student accommodations to ruin the “nice, peaceful scene” as one shopkeeper put it. And even though Leith Walk has happily taken to the modernisation, its locals at the bottom are not quite so keen. Pitt Street is one of the streets within the “Leith Conservation Area” which is designed to protect and emphasise “the area’s unique and complex architectural character” states the City of Edinburgh Council. Although this program was created by the council, due to rising pressures from the university and students, it seriously considered accepting the building proposals.
There is a reason why student accommodations are beginning to stretch further away from the campus. Edinburgh is notorious for its lack of accommodation for students, as well as its extremely high and ever-rising rent costs. The city centre is so densely populated that the university has now had to begin searching for new areas to house their students. Currently, the University ranks the sixth most expensive place to be a student out of a list of 50 UK universities, the average rent costs around £1,770 per month which many students struggle to cover, especially due to the cost-of-living crisis.
Currently, Leith has managed to push back against encroaching student accommodation, but it remains to be seen whether the influx of more students and the continuously rising costs of rent will force the council to abandon the “Leith Conservation Area” and build multiple accommodations or if Leith will stay untouched by students. The one thing that the council and the university are both aware of is how many students are struggling with rent prices and how this needs to be urgently addressed. So perhaps the gentrification of Leith may progress faster than we think.
Photo by Max Randall on Unsplash