“THROWN TO THE WOLVES”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26216, 29 July 1946, Page 8

“THROWN TO THE WOLVES”

Sir,—At my request as chairman of the Professional Board, the Rev. W. H. Turner has sent to me his comments on the report on lodgings prepared by a sub-com-mittee of the Otago University Students’ Association, a report to which you give some prominence and a small part of which you quote in your issue of Friday last. As Mr Turner points out, the report is vitiated by many inaccuracies. To refer only to the portion which you quote, the price of the house in Leith street purchased by the University is not given correctly. It is wrong to say that three married couples pay a weekly rental of £4 19s for it. £SO will not cover the rates and cost of maintenance, or even the rates alone. There is no sub-letting to tenants nor is there any breach of the Fair Rents Act, as the report suggests. The University has nothing to do with the fixing of the rents. Far from collecting a rental of £250 per annum, as the report calculates, it does not receive one penny in interest on the sum expended on the purchase of the house Not only so, the Council pays one half of the rent of another house which is used for a students’ boarding place. The arrangements for the use of the Leith street house are wholly in the hands of the Stuart Residence Halls Council which acts as agent for the University. The addendum to the report suggests that rents have been reduced by 2s 6d per week on account of the representations made in the report. The true facts are that the original rents were fixed tentatively by Mr Turner, and that, at the first meeting 'of the Halls Council after the house had been taken over, at the earliest, opportunity to review the position after all the commitments were known, the rents were reduced as stated. That meeting took place on July 4, at which date the material for the report was still being collected. It is to be regretted that, before publishing such allegations as the report makes against the University Council, some enquiry had not been made as to the reliability of the figures on which they were based. —I am. etc., Robt. J. T. Bell. Dunedin, July 27.