Warwick to invest £90 million on student accommodation in the next four years

The University of Warwick is set to invest £90 million in student accommodation in the next four years, as they aim to keep up with the rapid growth of the student population in Coventry. This may come as welcome news following the University’s pledge to do so after the serious accommodation shortage at the start of this academic year.

Coventry University have also pledged to invest more money, as it has been estimated that there are already about 50,000 students in the city, and rising, but only 4,000 purpose built bedrooms.

Peter Dunn, Director of Press and Policy at Warwick said the university had 6,529 students on campus out of 24,000 enrolled on courses.

“We have no significant plans for expansion of our student numbers, however we do plan to accommodate for any overshoots in student recruitment due to our popularity, at the rate of around 200 or so students a year. This year that was mainly made up of postgraduate students.

“We are spending £90m on new campus accommodation and the first 267 places will be ready by October 2017.

“We currently reserve 540 in current student accommodation in the centre of Coventry and we are increasing that next year to around a 1,000 just as precaution.

“We are not looking for any new accommodation in Leamington but we do want the existing private landlords there to join our rental scheme.

“We have 159 houses in Leamington – we believe that there are 100s more run by private landlords outside our scheme.”