PBSA, Oversupply, and the Student Experience: When the Market Outpaces the Campus

Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) has transformed student living across the UK. Having toured many developments, I’ve been struck by the quality of environments, the professionalism of on-site teams, and the growing focus on wellbeing and community. At its best, PBSA genuinely raises the bar for student experience.

But as more schemes come forward, particularly in smaller cities, a pressing question is emerging: what happens when accommodation supply grows faster than student demand?

The proposed redevelopment of the former Debenhams building in Norwich into hundreds of new student bedrooms is a timely case study. Norwich already serves UEA and NUA, both facing recruitment and financial pressures common across the sector. In that context, adding significant new capacity feels less about meeting unmet need and more about intensifying competition in an already crowded market.

This is not just a planning issue. It’s about student experience and institutional sustainability.

PBSA brings clear benefits: modern spaces, strong communal areas, visible staff presence, and often clearer safeguarding pathways than the traditional private rented sector. For many students, it offers safety, structure, and a sense of belonging during a critical life transition.

Yet in oversupplied markets, PBSA doesn’t simply complement university accommodation — it competes with it. With flat or falling student numbers, every new bed risks pulling demand from existing halls.

University-owned accommodation plays a vital role in many institutions’ finances, helping to sustain teaching, support services, and widening participation activity. It is also deeply embedded in pastoral care and transition support, particularly for first-year and more vulnerable students. As a senior leader who has been responsible for large stocks of accommodation in the past, I know first-hand that financially, maximum occupancy is key — and voids kill. Rising voids in halls don’t just affect balance sheets; they reduce capacity to invest in the very services that underpin positive student experience.

From a student perspective, more choice can feel positive. But at a city level, oversupply risks fragmentation. Some buildings fill, others struggle. Students become dispersed across sites, sometimes further from campus, with weaker everyday connection to academic life and peer communities. Student experience is shaped as much by belonging and visibility as by the quality of a room.

There is also a safeguarding lens. Dispersed, partially occupied accommodation can make coordination between providers and universities harder, dilute informal peer support, and add to the recently reported loneliness/ isolation issues that many students feel about their living arrangements while studying .

The Debenhams proposal reflects a wider national pattern: PBSA driven by investment opportunity in a sector long seen as resilient. Yet demographic change, shifting international recruitment, and financial pressure across higher education suggest that growth can no longer be assumed.

This isn’t an argument against PBSA. High-quality student accommodation has an important role to play, and many providers deliver outstanding environments. But in markets like Norwich, developments should be judged not only on their standalone viability, but on whether they strengthen the wider student ecosystem.

That requires closer collaboration between developers, local authorities, and universities, better use of demand data, and shared thinking about affordability, wellbeing, and integration into campus life.

Former Debenhams, Norwich — proposed site for new student accommodation (photo by David Smith / Geograph CC BY-SA 2.0).

Because a thriving student experience depends not just on where students live, but on financially stable universities, connected communities, and visible support around them.

So as more PBSA schemes are proposed in already saturated cities, I would encourage local councils to think very carefully before approving planning in these situations — even where it presents as an easy route to regenerate crumbling buildings in Britain’s current economic gloom. The long-term impact on students, universities, and local communities must matter more than the short-term appeal.