Unite is planning to raise £82m to fund the build of student accommodation across London.

The money will be raised from a share issue and will be used to fund the acquisition of new development sites up until 2011.

Unite believe that there are opportunities to develop student accommodation across London to meet the ongoing lack of modern purpose-built homes for students.

Phil White, chairman of Unite, commented: "The supply of good quality, well-located student accommodation continues to lag behind demand. Across the UK, there is only sufficient purpose-built accommodation to house two out of three first year or overseas students, but there is only one bed space for every three students from these groups in London.

"In this context, the Board believes that London represents a particularly attractive market for expansion, with over 250,000 full time students but only 42,000 purpose-built bed spaces.”