STUDENTS have blasted sky-rocketing rents and poor quality accommodation after a series of luxury flats spring up in Glasgow.

The swanky studio flats include dinner party rooms, a cinema and private gym and are to be rented out for as much as £257 a week.

Glasgow Times:

Collegiate AC, which manages the accommodation on North Woodside Road, describes the flats as “the most luxurious and exciting student accommodation...for the city’s most discerning students”, and adds they will be “one of Glasgow’s most in-demand properties this year.”

The cheapest of the 91 en suite rooms will cost occupants more than £9,000 a year, £179 a week, while the priciest ‘superior studio’ will see students forking out more than £10,000 for the year, or £205 per week.

A double occupancy studio will cost more than £13,000 a year, or £257 per week.

Glasgow Times:

The average student in Glasgow pays just £65.82 per week for accommodation, and earns on average £34.13 a week from part time work, according to the latest Student Living Index.

Student leaders have hit out at the extortionate rental rates of the luxury accommodation, and said the problem of affordable housing must be addressed in Glasgow.

Liam King, president of Glasgow University’s Student Representative Council, said: “Housing for students in Glasgow is rarely suitable.

“However £257 a week for a studio flat, are they having a laugh?

“From the extortionate rents in private halls providers to the widespread squalid conditions in private rented sector, far too many landlords of all types see students as cashcows.

“The Scottish Government Private Housing (tenancies) Bill should go some way to improving conditions for students but there is still much more the Government and councils should be doing.”

Glasgow Times:

Gary Paterson, Vice President Communities at the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland, said: “While some students may find themselves with the means and opportunity to move into accommodation at the higher end of the market, that’s far from the reality for most students, and needs to be urgently addressed.

“We have huge concerns about sky rocketing student rents which are increasingly pricing many people out of decent accommodation and leaving them at the mercy of a broken market.

“Students are some of the most in-need of decent quality, affordable and secure accommodation – but also at the greatest risk from companies charging sky prices, but with little in the way of anything meriting it.”

A spokeswoman from Collegiate AC said the firm was "proud to offer Glasgow's higher education students a choice when it comes to their housing during university."

Glasgow Times:

She added: "We believe that our rooms are competitively priced especially when you consider the all-inclusive offering.

"When renting with Collegiate you pay one fixed fee which includes not only your spacious, carefully designed room but also the on-site facilities including gym, cinema room, dinner party room and study rooms. Not only that but your contents insurance, high speed broadband and WiFi throughout and other utilities are also included.

"Woodside House offers good value accommodation within Glasgow especially as it is brand new, high specification and with a full time management team in place on hand to assist our residents 24/7."