People living in the heart of Manchester’s student area have launched a poster campaign to stop landlords buying another house in their street.
Neighbours Anne Tucker and Jackie Hynes have made posters urging landlords to ‘buy elsewhere’ after more than half the homes on St Ives Road in Fallowfield were rented to students.
They hope the posters will put off potential investors viewing the house, which is currently for sale.
The neighbours are the only remaining long-term residents on the street.
They say they are desperate for a family to buy the house and bring their street back to life.
Currently 23 of the 32 houses on the street are owned by landlords.
Anne, 60, said: “We’re not anti-students or anti-landlords, but this campaign is about getting a balance for the street.
“It’s deserted for three months of the year when students leave and we need long-term residents who will help with things like the bins and the back alley, where we have created a garden area.
“We’re desperate for a family to buy this house – it would be lovely to see children playing out in summer and would bring our street back to life.”
Anne and Jackie have created posters reading ‘Landlords: show you care, buy elsewhere’ and ‘Your livelihood, our neighbourhood’.
They have also appealed to the estate agents selling the two-bedroom terrace to change the description of the property online so it appeals more to families.
Jackie, who lives with her partner and two young daughters, said: “My children are now the only ones living on the street and it would be really nice if they had some others to play with.
“We want to get these posters in as many houses as possible – and have had some support from students already living here, who want to live somewhere quiet.
“Landlords can move much more quickly to buy a property than a family, who might need to get a mortgage or be in a chain.
“We are really hoping they will respect our neighbourhood and give a family a chance to buy this house.”
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They should consider themselves lucky. Imagine the crime rates if the streets were full of local families.
Students, over the last 40 years, have reduced decent, family homes in Fallowfield, to hovels - it's like a shanty town when they are all in residence.
There should be purpose-built, halls of residence, on campus, where the inhabitants can live in the squalor (of their own making) they obviously crave.
Calling many of them 'pigs', is an insult to all things genuinely porcine.
When I was a student, though not perfect, I had a modicum of respect for neighbours and local people - unlike many of those, today.
A message for Anne and others like her in the surrounding streets. The university and it's prosperity has destroyed the old communities in OUR area. I spent 30 odd years growing in Heald Place and it breaks my heart to see it ghosted for ANY length of time. It is not the estate agents that appeals need to be aimed at. It is the dean of the uni. Plus this neck of the woods needs a good community development officer and MORE purpose built student accommodation that is gated, secure and tidy. Good luck mate.
Puke, empty pizza boxes, cans, bottles - oh the students what a lovely bunch they are. Considering they are so hard up how is it they can afford so much of their money on takeaways and alcohol, and shop at Sainsbury's!
If they had more respect for the neighbourhood and the people that live in it, we might have more respect for them. Roll on summer when they have all gone back home to mummy & daddy
First it will be "no Students", followed by "no Blacks, no Dogs, no Irish", i though we lived in a country where people can live where they liked?
The students provide Manchester with large amounts of cash which not only benefits the landlords and university, but many businesses in Manchester.
The reason that Fallowfield is so popular is because of Owen's Park hall of residence and that many bars and take outs came into existence around that hall. Plus there is easy transport to the front door of Manchester University (not so much the old UMIST campus).
Have any residents tried to make the students part of the street, have you gone round and introduced yourselves when they moved in, in a bid to make them feel part of a community, and therefore more responsible to the area. I'm sure that some of them would love to help out in the garden area.
This will be the fate of Hulme, which has an already large number of houses being let to students. With the building of the MMU campus on Birley Fields, the situation will become intolerable as the residents of Fallowfield, know too well. Same on the council, Hulme's councillors and those Hulme residents who helped the council get this through planning.
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It is a student area and one THEY want to live in, so investors invest!!! It is a market !!
There wouldnt be anything round there without the students, they bring a massive income into that area and to manchester, we are a student city, and if you dont like it...................... move!
I would like to make it clear that our campaign is about BALANCED NEIGHBOURHOODS. I am not opposed to students at all - the students in our street are all very friendly, sociable, manage to live in very cramped conditions (a minimum of 3 per tiny 2 up 2 down terraced house) and study and enjoy their youth, all at the same time. Some of them are actively involved in keeping the street looking good.
Our problem is one of the balance of the street being more and more distorted. It would be the same whatever concentration of 'one type of residents' became more than a 70% majority. The street begins to feel 'mono-cultural' and the remaining 30% of people start to feel under seige. When they leave, it is harder and harder to keep the neighbourhood in balance and the majority of 70% becomes 80%, then 90% until finally everyone is from that group.
Jackie, I and most if not all of the other residents - students tenants and other householder families - are all in agreement ... we want to live in a street that has a mix of types and ages of people. This is in all our interests. We want long term residents, short term, families with children, babies, the elderly, young, middle aged and older professionals, and students. This is not an impossibility by any means, but it does seem to need active campaigning by residents to make it a reality. And thats what we are doing.
From my experience of visiting friends in Fallowfield, I've noted that it is not just students that cause the problems. I am a former student, but did not re-locate to the city of my study, I commuted, but am not a novice to the antics of student life. I have encountered several instances of disruption; I've had vehicle crime, my wing mirror knocked off my car once, along with others down the street (can't say who did it, but I have the image of drunk students, walking home on a Friday night taking punches at peoples car doors), I've been woken up at 2am by group singing many a time, along with shouting, again can't be 100% certain it was students, people between the ages of 18-25 aren't the only people that drink and go out. The only common, recurring problem i've experienced is a rowing couple, a public disturbance if you will, many a time having police resources involved. This happens very commonly and is the only thing I can be 100% sure is not student related.
What I'm trying to say is that I think it's wrong to point the finger at only students, but on the other hand i can see why it is easy to. I am fully for a diverse community, but I can in my own experience, I have noticed a wide variety in the source of where problems occur. I think everybody contributes to the disturbances, not just students
I completely agree with the problems of a distorted population and the need for balance. Being a student myself, we don't enjoy the effects that the student population has on the area, the loud parties when we have 9am lectures the next day, the litter. We got to know our neighbors and we benefited greatly from it. The fact is it is the most convenient area as a student. The bus route is fantastic, the proximity to a huge supermarket and being in walking distance of friends and a park. However, in response to many of the comments posted above it is not just students who bring the area down. We live next door to long terms residents and from day 1 we have been regularly kept up until 3am with shouting and were threatened twice after looking out of the window to see what was going on. 3 times the police have woken us up and a stranger banged on our downstairs bedroom window demanding to be let in before realizing it was next door he was after. It was terrifying. Balance in the area clearly needs to be addressed and I fully agree with the article, however the comments below it about students are rash, ignorant and account for a very small percentage of the student population.