A Belfast Councillor has suggested at City Hall that the council stops cleaning Queen’s University Halls of Residence after it emerged the university was not paying rates on student blocks.
At the recent monthly meeting of the full Belfast City Council, SDLP Councillor Carl Whyte made the suggestion during a discussion over striking the yearly district rate, in which a split chamber gave sufficient backing to a tax raise of 7.99 percent for homeowners and businesses in the city - the largest hike in many years.
Elected representatives learned that the council had spent over a hundred thousand pounds in the past year on waste services at student accommodation, some or all of which were exempt from paying their local taxes. The council agreed to look at its role in providing waste services for the non rate paying halls of residence.
