Sir – Without wishing in any way to take issue with the concerns being expressed about concentrations of housing being occupied by university students (letter, September 17), the welcome for the “new laws which have been proposed by Mr Denham as Communities Secretary” is misplaced.

Just because there is a problem, it is wrong to think that new or changed legislation will fix it. In the case of student housing, the law was changed in 1987, partly because of the difficulty in distinguishing between young adults living together and the wide variety of ways in which others were choosing to live; not all being in families of two adults and two children.

Councils already have powers to refuse planning permission for any change to multiple occupation, but, both currently and in the future, most students simply living in unconverted houses as single households are outside of any reasonable control. Incidentally, the 1987 change to the regulations was also to avoid obstacles to a move to more care in the community.

If Government is looking for new ways to intervene, it should consider the scale of the problem. On this basis, it could consider the impacts of ‘under-occupancy’, one of the factors leading to the need to increase our housing stock by 3m and the massive associated costs in infrastructure, energy and loss of green fields.

How would the public like it if planning powers were introduced based on a measure of ‘two bedrooms becoming spare’ amounting to a change requiring permission?

Experience shows that changes to regulations rarely have the desired effect and changing the regulation of student housing will add to the need for new policies, monitoring and enforcement, all at a time when councils are having to be careful about their expenditure.

Daniel Scharf Tutor in town planning Oxford University Department of Continuing Education