£1 MILLION SPEND ON STUDENT LETTINGS RUSH

Hundreds of students have been seen queuing in Plymouth’s North Hill – at Clever Student Lets offices.

The students were lining up to collect the keys to their digs ahead of the new academic terms starting – and it turns out they mostly want to live in small flats rather than huge purpose-built towers.

About 800 people arrived in just one day on Sunday 1st Sept 2019, and the queuing started at Clever Student Lets offices at 6.45am.

Henry Hutchins, chief executive of Clever Student Lets, said: “In fact, so many turned up that the nearby Switch and Air nightspots were turned into VIP waiting rooms, where students could get tea, coffee and even pizza, as CSL staff then ushered them into CSL offices 10 at a time in an orderly manner to avoid any chaos to register all the compliance and necessary paperwork to get their keys,” he said.

“The arrivals will continue until the end of September with about 3,000 expected by the end of the month.”

Clever Student Lets have taken on an additional six staff, bringing our total employees to 40, just to deal with the 2019 influx of students, said Mr Hutchins.

Mr Hutchins said the student influx is lucrative for Plymouth, with nearly £1million having been spent on cleaning, carpenters, electricians, gardeners, decorators and other repairs over the Summer period on 3,000 housing units, he said.

“We’ve spent £2,500 just on keys,” he said. “The big spend is cleaning, though. We have up to 70 cleaners out there.”

CSL is already the largest student lettings firm in Plymouth and thought to be the largest south of the M5. CSL is also the largest single lettings office in the entire UK and already has a turnover of more than £15.5 million.

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