Welcome to Southstreet

For many of today’s students, it’s no longer enough to rent a room in a run-down house, with people coming and going all the time. Instead, they want contemporary accommodation where they have the facilities and support that will help them get the most out of their time at university. And when they’re paying for it, or the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ are helping them out, we think that’s a reasonable thing to expect.

That’s why our properties include:

We also speak to universities and student associations regularly, to make sure that our properties are meeting students’ ever-changing needs. It’s this attention to detail that has made us one of the leading providers in the sector. It has also made us the University of Huddersfield’s preferred, recommended and approved accommodation supplier.

At the heart of our marketing strategy is our student-facing brand ‘DIGS’. It projects professionalism, security, value for money, honesty, consistency and reliability.

In the past few years, social media has transformed the way young people receive information, communicate with each other, and choose brands. That’s why we’ve recently redesigned the DIGS website to introduce Twitter, a Facebook page and blogs. As well as offering us constant marketing opportunities, these new media help us to keep in touch with our customers, and to respond immediately to the questions they raise. We also monitor social media ‘chatter’, so that whenever keywords related to South Street or the DIGS brand are used, we can find out what students are saying.

By talking to our customers, finding out how they feel about us, and understanding what’s working for them, we’re making sure that we keep the DIGS promise – that we enhance their student experience.

We’re growing rapidly with 3,700 beds around the country and another 1500 in the pipeline. Our aim is to grow our portfolio in London – the home of Europe’s largest student population, where there is a huge shortage of student accommodation and the rest of the UK. But we’ve never put our growth ahead of sustainable, socially responsible practices.

For us, sustainable development means that we always consider the environment, the communities we invest in, and the health, welfare and ethical treatment of our employees and suppliers. We also:

Encourage the use of building materials and furnishings from sustainable sources
Conserve energy by using energy-efficient heating and lighting systems, and improved insulation
Observe all local environmental control policies and environmental regulations
Give students advice on good energy practices
Work with local authorities to provide appropriate recycling facilities

We also believe that by providing purpose-built accommodation, we avoid creating student ‘ghettoes’ – residential neighbourhoods that inevitably become run down over time. Purpose-built developments like ours also free up vital housing stock for other social groups – particularly families. As a result, our developments can have a positive impact not just on the lives of the students who live there, but of the communities they’re a part of.

With our market-leading facilities management, we make sure that students’ needs are always looked after. Sodexo, one of the world’s leading facilities management providers, carries out all our ‘hard’ facilities management, with minimum disruption to our customers. Sodexo takes care of:

We also provide a number of ‘soft facilities management services’ that help students settle into their accommodation. These include:

Our student database Occam Room Service also manages every aspect of the accommodation cycle, from allocating a room to a student when they arrive, to collecting rents, room swaps and early checkouts.

With such comprehensive facilities management, we can provide students with a highly personalised, responsive service. And by looking after their wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of our properties, we’re making sure that your investment is looked after too.