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Students are witholding rent payments from Liverpool University after hall fees outstripped grants for the first time ever.

Students are paying their rent into a rent strike account set up by the guild of students and say they will continue to do so until hall fees are lowered.

The guild says that hall fees for 1995/96 are now at Pounds 1,911 while the maximum student grant is just Pounds 1,885. They have called on the university to make savings elsewhere and then lower the fees.

Guild president Kevin Gould said: "Hall fees have risen by more than twice the rate of inflation over the last few years and the hall fee is now bigger than the grant cheque for the first time ever.

"The university has to face the fact that the students cannot take on the burden of all the cuts being forced on it by the Government."