Sir – Sietske Boeles claims that research by Professor Dorling, of Sheffield University, indicates that having students living amongst us “is not healthy” (Letters, June 4).
Professor Dorling’s research report is available at www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/ research/changingUK.html.
We have been in touch to clarify his views. The report does not mention Oxford, although it is referred to in some of the tables. It suggests that a number of factors contribute to a sense of social fragmentation (including unmarried adults, single person households, people changing address in the previous year, and people renting from the private sector) and it measures these over time and by region.
The resulting index is not intended to measure mental health.
The causes of social fragmentation are linked to mobility, and therefore relate to a number of groups, including young staff working in Oxford as part of their health professional training, or working in high-tech industries which tend to be highly mobile. Professor Dorling does raise concern about the impact of a large transient population of students.
However, we need to bear in mind that 20 per cent of students at Oxford Brookes University are from Oxfordshire, and therefore not transient, and many of our students settle here after graduation to work in local businesses, schools, the NHS, etc.
Furthermore, the two universities are amongst the ten largest employers in the county and their impact on the wellbeing of the city is immensely positive.
Professor Dorling has asked us to point out that, far from arguing for a reduction in student numbers, he has recently written in the British Medical Journal arguing that an immediate ten per cent expansion in student numbers would have a major beneficial effect in offsetting the potential impact of the recession on young people.
Dr Anne Gwinnett, Director of Corporate Affairs, Oxford Brookes University
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