Lower Rents Now Coalition

The Lower Rents Now coalition (abbreviated to LRN or LRN!C) is a student group at the University of St Andrews. The group would like to see an increase in the amount of affordable accommodation at St Andrews. In particular, the group campaigns against the university's plans for the what is currently its cheapest hall of residence, Fife Park, which the university intends to replace with non-affordable accommodation similar to the university's 3-star David Russell Apartments.
LRN is not affiliated to the Students' Association at St Andrews, and its members come from a diverse political background. The group meets weekly on Tuesdays in a local pub in St Andrews, but is often seen near the Union or the university library distributing leaflets.
Background
St Andrews is the most expensive university town for student rent in Scotland, and the fifth most in the UK. At the same time, the percentage of students at St Andrews from lower income backgrounds is one of the smallest out of all the higher education institutions in the UK. It is for reasons such as this that members of LRN feel the university should increase the number of affordable beds available.
In order to meet HMO requirements, the university needs to renovate Fife Park by 31 December 2008. What members of LRN object to is how the university intends to redevelop Fife Park to meet these HMO requirements.
The university intends to build 210 non-en-suite rooms, and 567 en-suite rooms. The university intends to charge prices in the range of £97-130 per week for the proposed replacement, rates that are roughly 70-120% higher than those currently available. Members of LRN contend the plans were designed to be unnecessarily expensive. For example, the rooms were designed with the assumption that there should be a television in every room, and a large majority of the rooms will be en-suite, which will cost closer to the £130 per week end of the estimate. This is because the designs are substantially similar to that of the en-suite David Russell Apartments, which costs over £122 per week.
Despite a lengthy campaign and a mass of student objections Fife Council passed the planning application (for Fife Park) on the 10th of December 2008 after Chris Smith's recommendation for approval .
Protests, Media and Action
One of the earliest LRN protests was staged at Gordon Brown's opening of the David Russell Apartments in 2007.
In May 2008, LRN protested outside the University Court meeting where it was believed the 'Fife Park Issue' was being discussed. This was in the form of a march with in excess of 100 students (although various sources claim different numbers), followed by speeches by prominent members such as Patrick O'Hare. The three nights prior to the march involved some members of the group camping outside of the library, to draw attention to the lack of affordability in the proposals for Fife Park.
As well as the above LRN protested at the former Principal's (Brian Lang) leaving dinner in December 2008 which secured a meeting with University Officials for the following year.
LRN have had articles and letters covering the situation and developments, in several newspapers and journals. These have ranged from the local student newspaper, The Saint, to regional newspapers such as The Courier , to national publications such as the Big Issue in Scotland , the Scottish Socialist Party newspaper (Scottish Social Voice), Socialist Worker , The Scotsman and the Daily Mail.
LRN is still campaigning against the closure of Fife Park, and has been encouraging students to submit objection letters to the university's application for planning permission for the proposed Fife Park replacement. Many students have submitted objections. One ground of objection is that it is council policy that 30% of houses built in or around St Andrews must be affordable, but the proposed Fife Park replacement will have no affordable beds. The University of St Andrews is aware of this council policy, and asked the Scottish Government to redefine the word 'affordable' in the context of planning guidelines to include all accommodation built for students.
Rectorship Campaign 2008
Many Lower Rents Now members were involved in the Colin Fox for Rector Campaign along with other societies from St Andrews, including Stop The War. This is because part of the platform of the Colin Fox campaign was to call for an increase in the amount of affordable accommodation in St Andrews.
Although the campaign backed Colin Fox specifically, all rectorial candidates listed 'Accommodation Issues' as important to student representation, and promised to support them.

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