Fife councillors have defended students in St Andrews and the allocation of Homes with Multiple Occupancies.
At Fife Council regulation and licensing committee, councillors tackled objections to new HMOs and why students do not pay council tax.
Councillor Tom Adams claimed there was bias from St Andrews residents against students.
He said: “They’ve not even moved in yet and already they’re a problem. Students must be the worst people on Earth, because nobody wants them.
“Already we have noise complaints, and waste complaints, and people haven’t even moved in yet.
Mr Adams was responding to objections to a proposed HMO.
The objectors cited bin refuse, car parking difficulties and noise among their objections to the proposed student residence, despite it being almost a year before students move into the property.
Mr Adams said: “I think they are very badly treated in committee, such as this complaint. It’s all supposition; they’re just kidding on that all this will happen.
“In your complaint you assume that mess left on your street comes from the HMO on that street, of which you have no proof.”
The committee deferred the application pending further clarity. A property in Windsor Gardens was approved to the next stage of the process.
Two other HMOs were renewed in North Street and Lamond Drive.
David Hamilton, who represented the objection to the renewal of the HMO licence on the North Street property, argued the student residences were “developing St Andrews into a slum”.
Councillor David MacDiarmid warned of the danger of allowing too many multiple occupancy properties.
He said: “We need to stop St Andrews becoming a midden. It’s not students that are the problem, it is absentee landlords.
“The town now looks run down in places that should look spectacular.”
Councillor David Graham countered suggestions that student residences or landlords ought to be made to pay industrial rates for waste uplift, like holiday homes which do not pay council tax.
He said: “There are plenty of people on some kind of benefit who don’t pay council tax and they still get their waste uplifted. Students don’t pay council tax, but that’s another discussion.”