Queen’s University and Ulster University spent over £500k on luxurious properties for their vice-chancellors to live in

Queen’s University and Ulster University together spent over £500,000 on expenses for their respective vice-chancellors’ residences in the last five years.

oth university chiefs lived in the luxurious properties rent-free despite their reported salaries of around £300,000.

The expenses included gardening, utilities and cleaning costs as well as the TV licenses for both residences.

Nearly 70% of UK universities no longer provide their vice-chancellors with grace-and-favour homes, according to figures from the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group.

Queen’s University and Ulster University have both said the residences were also used for university events and activities.

Ulster University’s former vice-chancellor Professor Paddy Nixon lived in Knocktarna House, a 19th century, 25-room property with views of the River Bann and over four acres of garden, until his move to Canberra in 2020.

His replacement, Professor Paul Bartholomew, does not occupy the residence.

Over five years, Ulster University spent more than £250,000 on the property, including £98,000 on utilities and rates, £113,000 on gardening, cleaning and maintenance and £37,000 on the employment of a part-time member of staff.

One of the most striking revelations is that between 2015 and 2020 Ulster University paid £40,000 on telephone and internet costs alone.

QUB’s Professor Ian Greer continues to live in the Vice-Chancellor’s lodge which is situated at Lennoxvale, off the Malone Road in south Belfast, and has been described as “one of the most desirable of all Vice-Chancellors’ residences in the British Isles”.

The listed, 35-room, stone-built property was built in the 1870s and bequeathed to the university by Sir William Whitla after his death in 1933.

The property’s expansive landscaped gardens boast a coach-house, a garden-house and a boat-house as well as two large ornamental lakes.

Since 2015, Queen’s University has spent over £267,000 on the lodge, including £72,803 on utilities and rates and £194,000 on gardening, cleaning and maintenance, which includes the employment of a gardener.

Professor Greer is also furnished with a car for work duties.

Branding the expenses as “unnecessary”, outgoing President of the Queen’s Students’ Union Grian Ní Dhaimhín has called on the university “to ensure that they are playing their part in eradicating social and economic inequality, and are prioritising the needs of students and staff.”

“Students, during and before the pandemic, have endured immense inequality.”

According to a QUB spokesperson, the university has taken steps to tackle student hardship, including the pausing of accommodation contracts at a cost of £5m since October and £3m worth of support delivered via the university hardship fund.

Students across Northern Ireland also received a one-off £500 Covid disruption payment from Stormont.

QUB also stressed that the lodge was donated to the university “with the intention that it should be used as the residence of the vice-chancellor” and that “the bulk of the costs relate to the appropriate maintenance of the property”.

The lodge’s inclusion in the vice-chancellor’s remuneration package was “designed to attract those with the best skillset for this vital role”, added the spokesperson.

An Ulster University spokesperson said that while “there is no longer a residence included within the vice-chancellor’s remuneration package … the property will continue to be used as a resource for the university”.