Nottingham's City Council leader has finally had the courage to say we’ve got enough student flats. I couldn’t agree more

The new leader of Nottingham City Council Neghat Khan pictured at Nottingham Castle in a black dress
-Credit:Joseph Raynor/Reach PLC


Could Neghat Khan be the city council leader we’ve all been waiting for?

There have been moments over the past few months where I’ve found myself nodding and uttering a “well said” to myself after she’s spoken to us.

She seemed to get things moving quickly on City Ground negotiations fairly soon after taking up her post as leader in May last year, just one of the issues on her plate to resolve.

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Finances at Loxley House are still not where anyone would want them to be, but at least things haven’t got worse.

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And her willingness to speak to our reporters is always welcome too of course, and isn’t always the case with councillors and council leaders.

This week I’ve been impressed with Cllr Khan’s bold commitment to not build any student flats on the Broad Marsh site. She has even gone so far as to say that our city has “got enough of it [student accommodation]”.

You can guarantee that the moment we write a story about yet another block of student flats in Nottingham, the comments will start flooding in criticising that decision.

A story we published on January 20 about new student accommodation attracted comments like: “How about working homes for young people who would pay council tax?” and “How about making Loxley House into student flats?” as well as “Oh great joy. Just what the city centre needs - more student accommodation. You couldn't make it up.”

So Cllr Khan’s statement this week was a breath of fresh air. Speaking as it was announced that the long-awaited final plans for the Broad Marsh site would be revealed in March, she said she’d like to see more families and working-class people living there.

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“If we want to grow the economy, then we need to look at the type of housing that we need and we need to make sure that we can attract people,” she added.

This is the news Nottingham has been waiting to hear for years. Residents don’t want their city to be populated entirely by transient students. We want people to settle here, build families and get jobs. We want our city to be a place where people stay and spend money, maybe even start a business.

Nottingham desperately needs a sense of community brought back to the city centre - and despite the money and liveliness students bring, they can never replicate the feeling and stability of a well-established neighbourhood.

All I hope now is that Cllr Khan can keep to her commitment. We'll be watching closely.