Block upon block of luxury housing are being built whilst the housing crisis worsens. The Liberal Democrats compiled a list, using data from 158 councils that concluded that ‘at least 104,000 people in Britain have been on waiting lists for council- owned or “arms- length run” homes, such as housing associations, for five years.’ Furthermore, ‘at least 35,000 have been on the same waiting list for 10 years' according to 'The Mirror'. This highlights the major crisis for affordable housing we have here in the UK- specifically as you get nearer to London due to the dense population.

Surrey's newspaper 'getSURREY' reported that 'private accommodation for more than 550 University of Surrey students could be built on land next to Guildford College'. The aim of which is to "relieve further pressure on market housing" as the "University of Surrey predicts a growth of 3,300 students in student numbers in the next ten years". Due to more students applying to university than ever before, according to UCAS, in 2015 532,300 students entered higher education which is an increase of 3.1% (16,100 students) on 2014. This increase shows that the example of Surrey is just the tip of the iceberg.

Kingston is amongst one of the many places where student accommodation continues to be built, most recently ViBe. I spoke to a local resident, Katie Mullen who stated that she believes that: "The council should be building low-cost housing for families, instead luxury student accommodation continues to be built. Where are the needs of local residents amongst all this?"

This question isn’t unfounded as it is evident that the needs of students who have money, so can therefore pay for this accommodation, are being placed above local residents who may be one of the 104,000 who have been on a waiting list for 5 years therefore deprived of the stability of home we all rely on. Instead pieces of land, like the brown field land being used in Surrey, are bought by private companies who can pay more.

Concerns from residents, such as Katie Mullen, are yet to be addressed by local and national government despite outrage and the formation of organisations such as defendcouncilhousing.org.uk. In fact, the government’s only response is the continual debates in the House of Commons with the belief that the key to solving this crisis is “transforming generation rent into generation buy” according to the Conservative government's new housing and planning bill described in this article published on the 4th January 2016. However- as explored by the Guardian in their article aptly named 'The end of Council Housing'- amongst these ‘proposals are a few that cut straight to what the heart of council housing has always been all about.’ Unless the government suddenly listen to the people and change their policies, this profitable business of luxury accommodation will continue to thrive depriving working families of very necessary homes.