By Molly Bishop

Students at the University of Stirling are continuing to struggle to find affordable accommodation amidst the housing crisis.

Private rented accommodation in Stirling is reportedly extremely limited and many students who began their search back in the summer are still struggling to find suitable housing.

The University returns to in-person teaching following previous Covid-19 teaching restrictions, resulting in a higher volume of students returning to the city. The large competition and lack of student flats have left many individuals in a very difficult position.

Melissa, a fourth-year student at the university, discussed how she had “moved out of my flat in late June as my flatmates and I thought we would be able to find somewhere nicer for our final year at uni. This unfortunately did not happen.

“We had been looking for flats since early May and nothing sufficient came up, since then there had been very minimal flats on the market and if something came up it got taken off the market within minutes. It left us high and dry with nowhere to stay. Safe to say I wish we had stayed in our original flat as this is an awful situation to be in for our final year at uni.”

This coincides with the cost-of-living crisis, as many landlords are increasing their rent prices, resulting in numerous flats on the rental market being inaccessible to certain students.

Freya, a third-year student, said how she had, had a similarly difficult experience with accommodation this year “After numerous flats had fallen through my friend and I began looking in the summertime. But by then there were not many options, everything we found would be gone in an hour and every time we would try and call someone about one of their flats, they would never answer us.

It got to the point where it was a few weeks away from Uni starting and we still could not find anything. Everything was so expensive or was further out of Stirling. It caused us both a lot of stress and I was worried I would have to commute to Uni for the first semester. We both eventually found places to stay separately, however not living together was not exactly the experience we had expected.”

Many students across the country have struggled with finding accommodation this year. Those who are not lucky enough to be able to commute to Uni are having to rely on couch surfing and hotels.