Welcome To Inaugural Meeting By Cllr. Dave Trimble

Welcome everybody. People from all political parties have come from far and wide, making a big effort to attend. For a subject not tested on a national scale before – a very creditable turn out.

In a sense, there is one thing that I do not want to get out of today and that it that we don’t spend our time saying “my ward is worse than yours”, “no it’s not, mine is!” We have all got involved because this is a real issue in the wards that we represent.

We get ‘phone calls, letters, e-mails. People come to our surgeries. The issues are raised at community meetings. They dominate our casework. We all know what the issues are: the lack of children to fill the schools, noise, parking problems, street cleansing, household waste, shops turning into hot food takeaways, litter … and so on.

The students themselves are becoming the victims of burglars. Their multiples of consumer goods and gadgets are an Aladdin’s Cave for criminals.

As individuals we are all working away at the issues and, like many residents, we think we’re alone. We seem to be the only ones doing this. But we’re not! There are at least thirty cities up and down the country where these issues are being dealt with on a daily basis.

We need to get the message across that this is not a little problem tucked away in a corner – a little problem which, if it’s ignored, will go away. It is not! Whilst the Government’s desire to increase university education across the country is laudable, it has created a considerable downside as it has grown and grown without planning for and organisation of the appropriate infrastructure.

We need to get that message across to the Government.

I have no doubt that this has been a community led campaign: it has been led from the grass roots.

I tried for at least eight to ten years to get this issue on the Council’s agenda, but it wasn’t until the frustration of local out of today though. I want this movement to grow, and I want it to be organised enough to share best practice from council to council in order to assist in raising the issue up what is quite clearly a cross party political agenda.

The other outcome I want for us, and the others who couldn’t make it here today, is to increase pressure on Members of Parliament and, in particular, to co-ordinate a lobby of Government Ministers.

The ultimate goal must be to change planning legislation on Use Classes Orders. They’ve got it in Northern Ireland and we need it here.

Quite simply, we need the tools and powers in order to make the difference.

Unfortunately, Housing and Planning Ministers seem to change year on year.

The first Minister who showed any independent thought on this was Keith Hill. I was in a completely different meeting with him when he took me aside and asked my opinion on the matter.

I really do believe that he was interested in doing something. He hosted a lobby in Westminster for us, but two things conspired against us. First, he only lasted a year: he was the only Minister to be completely re-shuffled out that year.

Second, his civil servants took every opportunity to steer him away from the subject altogether. In many ways they are probably the biggest hurdle we have to tackle.

One thing that Keith Hill did do during his year in office, alongside the Minister responsible for Further Education, was to commission a piece of research into what has become known as ‘studentification’.

Universities hate that term, but for local residents that is the reality of their day-to-day lives.

As we all know, that piece of research was carried out by Dr. Darren Smith, who has very kindly agreed to facilitate the day for us today, along with his colleague.

It was at the Westminster launch of that piece of research that the present Minister, Baroness Andrews, was, I think, a bit surprised by the level of feeling and emotion that the subject evoked from a wide range of back bench MPs and other attendees, including some of us from Nottingham.

Baroness Andrews has kindly agreed to come to Nottingham in the last week in March. Whether voluntarily or not, I am not sure.

What I am sure about is that we will get our message over when she does come! I also understand that following a bit of a spat in Parliament, Phil Woolas, the Communities and Local Government Minister, has visited Loughborough, as a result of an ambush initiated by their MP.

One thing I am sure about is that we won’t change anything unless we give them hell! We have to make it easier for them to do something than it is to do nothing. We have to remember that it will take a brave Minister to interfere with, or to intervene in, the housing market. It won’t be easy.

On the good practice front, in this year’s budget we have set aside provision to commission UNIPOL in Nottingham. This is a housing charity with over twenty years experience in managing and co-ordinating student accommodation in Leeds and Bradford. On the Board will be representatives of the City Council, the University, both Student Unions and local residents.

Local residents will have somewhere to raise their issues and air their grievances and both Students Unions are 100% behind making it easier for students to find accommodation and drive up standards too. We still have some work to do on one of the universities and, it goes without saying, private landlords.

Alongside this we have the Student Housing Action Plan, where the Council, the universities, the Students Unions and the local residents sign up to pledges for the future.

I believe that we can honestly say that this is not about student bashing. It’s about building balanced communities, creating a sustainable city and improving the quality of housing for students.

Managing the integration of transient populations has never been easy, whether it be students or others. It does take its toll on the fabric of the area, of the town or city, and it is Local Government that has to deal with that.

I am looking forward to hearing your ideas and to having a very productive day.

[Cllr. Trimble is the Executive Member for Housing & Social Services & Labour Member for Dunkirk & Lenton Ward]