Cardiff council says the quiet part out loud

Last time I looked at a selection of local plans, for example, I tended to find students framed as pound signs rather than citizens with needs.

But sometimes what goes on goes way beyond carelessness.

Cardiff Council has a parking problem – and as it introduces permits, its wheeze is to propose a blanket ban on anyone in a Class N or M property (student HMOs or halls) from getting one.

For a start, it’s easily one of the most egregiously age-discriminatory things I’ve seen in three decades of knocking about universities.

The Single Impact Assessment is almost amusing. The positive impact on the old can be summarised as “well, they’ll be able to park”, while the positive impact on the young is framed as “they seem to care about the environment”. Negative impacts – or even a recognition that students tend to be younger – are missing.

But it’s the thoughtlessness and othering that’s most shocking. Look at the way this section frames students as residents… or not:

Reduced commuter and student (temporary resident) parking pressure: Parking Zones discourage long-term parking by non-residents, reducing the pressure on residential streets from commuter parking. This ensures that residents have priority access to parking spaces near their homes.

It is also that, from 1st August 2026, properties that are exempt from liability for payment of Council Tax are excluded from the resident permit parking scheme. This policy will primarily affect properties occupied by students. Bringing the policy into operation in August 2026 allows the Council time to effectively communicate the changes to students.

On the one hand, the council must know how expensive student rent has become, and how many students are in jobs outside of the city as a result. But even setting that aside, the assumption that every student nurse or teacher is either on the bus/train to placement or not in an HMO/halls is breathtaking.

As Cardiff SU ably puts it, lots of students rely on cars for essential reasons:

• Traveling to academic placements or part-time jobs – speak to the many medical and healthcare students travelling to remote parts of Wales on placement and ask them if the Welsh public transport system would be able to get them there?
• Essential travel for students with access needs – some who have no choice but to drive to access their lectures or seminars as there are parts of the public transport system that are not accessible to their needs.
• Students who have caring responsibilities – many of who may have to drive to classes in between taking children to nursery or caring for sick relatives.
• Students travelling for activities – many students use their own vehicles to attend sporting fixtures or society events across different parts of the city and country. Early mornings and late starts to many activities mean public transport isn’t always an option, and we know it’s not always the most reliable!
• Students going about day-to-day activities – from going to the supermarket (and may we add we carpool en masse to do this) to picking up furniture or attending GP appointments. The basic activities that other individuals in the community get the luxury of using their car for.
• These needs reflect the diverse, complex lives of students, and to deny them permits risks treating students as second-class citizens.

We can have little doubt that the expansion of student numbers in cities like Cardiff won’t have been done in lockstep with the council – an issue we’re more used to thinking about in terms of housing availability.

And there’s almost certainly something in here about who votes in local elections and the electoral system used in the locals.

But if councils are under pressures of this sort, they can punch up – where is the campaign from the Welsh LGA on student numbers planning and its relationship to the services they offer and the pressures they’re under?

Or they can punch down – riding roughshod over equalities legislation and saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to what they really think about students.