A local councillor is calling on the government to act immediately to make sure student accommodation in Carlow is more affordable.
It’s claimed some of the local third-level hopefuls are in dire straits due to a lack of available rooms.
People Before Proft Cllr Adrienne Wallace has told KCLR news there’s a real crisis in Carlow and it’s unacceptable for a college town, noting “My phone has been hopping anyway the last couple of days with students worrying about accommodation, where they’re going to stay and stuff so it’s definitely at crisis point alright, a lot of people are couch surfing, they’re having to even defer their course for another year and then there’s more again who are actually staying in hotels, we’re seeing a big increase in hotels advertising somewhat lower rates for students”.
She adds “Carlow is a bustling student town and it has an aspiration to expand into a technological university but if the local infrastructure isn’t provided by your local TDs and government well then it’s not going to be able to, I suppose, grow and develop so it’s going to have a serious knock-on effect for the local community”.
