Generation no rent: The students who say they can’t pay and they won’t pay It started with 700 students taking part in a rent strike at UCL, but now their protest is sparking unrest […]

It started with 700 students taking part in a rent strike at UCL, but now their protest is sparking unrest at campuses across the country. Charlie Gilmour reports

How do you start a rent strike? At University College London, where more than 700 hundred students are currently withholding £1m in payments, it was simple. “The rent strike is the easiest thing to join,” says 21-year-old Angus O’Brien, halls and accommodation representative at UCL. “Just don’t pay your rent.”

Since UCL’s campaign – a protest against rising rents and poor conditions – began in 2015, three more London universities have joined what has been described as the “largest student rent strike in British history”. With rumblings at Bristol and Oxford, and a NUS-supported “rent strike tour” in the works, it’s set to grow larger.

So what do the strikers want? And what, if anything, can average tenants – who fork out as much as 72 per cent of their income to live in London – lear from the rent-dodging students?

At UCL it was kicked off, as so many residential disputes are, by building work. “UCL were demolishing a building on their Bloomsbury campus next to halls,” recalls O’Brien. “Students weren’t told about it before they moved in. It was all during exam term and they must have been drilling the place apart.”

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Their initial, tentative strike – involving no more than a hundred students – was, despite the university’s illegal threat of academic sanctions, victorious. Those living in affected accommodation were refunded a whole term’s rent, and awarded compensation too: in total, the student strikers ended up winning almost half a million pounds from UCL.

According to research conducted by HSBC in 2014, London is, unsurprisingly, the most expensive city in which to study. Students in the capital spent an average of £287 per week on bare essentials such as accommodation, food, and travel Second is Oxford. Living amongst those dreaming spires will set you back £272.75 per week and, at an average of £137, hall accommodation costs are even steeper than at the London universities The third most expensive city is Brighton, where students at the University of Sussex pay an average £262.67 per week

Rather than being pacified, the students were galvanized. As the university haemorrhaged money, they smelt blood. UCL Cut the Rent (UCL–CTR) released a statement claiming that the victory “vindicates [our] established position that direct action and disruptive protests are extremely effective methods for holding unelected and powerful bodies to account. UCL–CTR believes that rent strikes will become an increasingly important tactic among the wider student movement.”

‘Atrocious and filthy’

And so they have: this academic year, hundreds more have joined. At UCL, whose vermin-infested and poorly maintained halls have been described by residents as “atrocious,” “filthy,” and “nearly unliveable”, at least 700 students are demanding a 40 per cent rent cut and are refusing to pay up until they get it.

“Seven hundred is probably a conservative estimate,” says O’Brien. “We keep on finding people who are on strike and haven’t told us: we could have more than a thousand.”

That number keeps growing. Small strikes have been reported at the Courtauld Institute and Roehampton University, and at Goldsmiths University, at least 300 more have joined up.

Exploding toilets

Goldsmiths was especially ripe for revolution. Students reported sewage in the showers, flooded kitchens, mouldy walls, “fungal” ceilings, rotting mice, broken heating, and perhaps worst of all, patchy WiFi.

“There was the infamous exploding toilet, too,” says Joe, 23, spokesperson for Goldsmiths Cut the Rent. “The bathroom was covered in excrement for days. When we went into halls, the mood was angry – at the cost of rent and the terrible conditions – and the campaign grew incredibly quickly. It’s all down to UCL. They did the groundwork by having rent strikes, growing them, and winning. They’ve lodged the idea of a rent strike into students’ minds.”

“The bathroom was covered in excrement for days. When we went into halls, the mood was angry – at the cost of rent and the terrible conditions – and the campaign grew incredibly quickly.

While having more money for beer might be enough to capture any student’s imagination, their desire for cheaper accommodation is about far more than that.

“UCL has increased the average rent by 56 per cent since 2009,” says O’Brien. “It makes almost £16m profit. Ultimately the people being affected are actually those who can’t afford to come. If people can’t come to halls then they can’t come to the university. Something like that shouldn’t be dependent on your economic background.”

The university demurs. “We make every effort at UCL to keep rents as low as possible, which is a difficult challenge considering our central London location. Our rents are competitive in comparison with equivalent London institutions, and far less than rates for comparable accommodation in the private sector,” says a spokesperson. The students, however, are unanimous. “The rents are ridiculous,” agrees Joe from Goldsmiths. “Lower to middle-income students are now choosing not to come to London because it’s so expensive. And on top of it, you don’t even get to live in decent conditions because university management and private halls providers take first-year students for a ride. Management think they can get away with it. This campaign says they can’t.”

Flammable situation

That message can’t fail to have reached the powers that be. Earlier this year, in response to a student journalist being threatened with expulsion by UCL’s vice-provost over the publication of documents relating to rents, strikers paraded en masse through campus. When they reached Euston Road, they burnt an effigy of vice-provost Rex Knight.

“A point needed to be made,” says O’Brien. “They don’t have free rein over students. They can’t just do what they want. There will be a response – quite an angry response – from students if you just try to ride all over them.”

Any campus at this point has the revolutionary potential to go on rent strike

London is proving to be a shining – provost-burning – beacon, to which students at universities across the nation are now turning. UCL–CTR report “hundreds” of inquiries from students at Edinburgh, Warwick, Manchester, LSE, and elsewhere asking for advice about how to set up their own campaigns.

“Any campus at this point has the revolutionary potential to go on rent strike,” says O’Brien. “We’ve kicked the first clump of snow off the top of the mountain and now it is going to avalanche.”

There are already ominous rumblings in the distance. At Oxford University, students at Wadham College recently raised the flag of a rent strike – quite literally, with banners bearing slogans such as “Can’t Pay Won’t Pay” – in response to a proposed rent hike. And at Bristol – where students also face increased rents – a new campaign mirrors the capital.

“London has been a real inspiration,” says Elly, a spokesperson for Bristol Cut the Rent, “and we will be pushing for a rent strike next year.”

As the National Union of Students declares its support for the rent strike – even going so far as to offer to facilitate a “rent strike tour” during which “students who have been on rent strike will share their experiences at rallies” – it seems highly likely that the tactic will spread far and wide in the new academic year.

Rent is everyone’s problem

If the students manage to pull it off, then there’s hope for all tenants. “We are very encouraged by what’s happening in the student movement,” says Ben, a spokesperson for the Radical Housing Network, a coalition of groups across London engaged in struggles for housing justice.

“Any significant win in the student rent strikes would galvanise talk of a rent strike across London. Rent is everyone’s problem.”

Twitter: @charliegilmour