ROWDY students inflicted ten days of misery on families in East Oxford, keeping residents awake until 4am night after night.

With Oxford’s noise abatement team now being swamped with complaints, residents say the council, police and universites are struggling to contain the excesses of the city’s late-night party culture.

An all-night dance party held in Cassington earlier this month kept people awake in western and northern parts of the city.

But residents in East Oxford say people in these areas “got off lightly” compared to the noise they are having to face almost every night.

Elizabeth Mills, chairman of Divinity Road Area Residents’ Association, said: “For the past ten days, the antisocial behaviour of some Oxford Brookes students around Cowley Road between 11pm and 4am has kept residents awake for hours.

“Shouting, swearing and house parties are the main problem. But students also urinate and vomit in the street and gardens, chant rugby songs, vandalise cars and property, drop takeaway litter and up-end rubbish bins in the street.”

Residents, prepared to put up with occasional loud nights, say there is no longer any respite during the working week.

Wednesday, which sees Fuzzy Ducks night at the O2 Academy on Cowley Road, is considered the worst night for noise.

Residents in East Oxford are pressing for a protocol to be drawn up with the city council’s environmental department and police to encourage “a consistent approach” to the growing problem. They say it should lay down to whom residents should complain and what sort of response they can reasonably expect.

Mrs Mills said: “The police do a valiant job but it must be an impossible task to tame 1,400 drunk students as they leave a Fuzzy Ducks night to do the hokey-cokey back to halls or rented houses, leaving mayhem in their wake. Some think this is a ‘student area’, so anything goes.”

Oxford Brookes is paying £124,000 for two police community support officers to patrol the university’s Headington campus and surrounding streets. But neighbours complain that they finish work long before the worst late-night distubances occur.

Mrs Mills said: “Brookes says it is helping the community by funding PCSOs. But they go off duty at midnight.”

Emma Cox, a mother-of-three, of London Road, Headington, said loud parties had become a huge problem.

She said: “My three-year-old has been woken up numerous times at two and three o’clock in the morning. It can be quite distressing.”

It emerged this week that calls to the city’s environmental health department out-of-hours service have increased by 70 per cent over the past six years.

Complaints are now having to be ranked in order of importance as on-call officers struggle to attend every incident. There is just one staff member on call each weekend.

The idea of a joint protocol between the council and police was proposed at a residents’ meeting with city council executive board member John Tanner.

But Mr Tanner this week warned that no more money was available to increase out-of-hours council cover. He added: “We are looking at ways to improve and work more efficiently. I think there is a danger of over-stretching if we try to respond to every call.”

Dr Anne Gwinnett, Brookes director of corporate affairs, who chairs the university’s meetings with local residents’ associations, said: “We have two PCSOs, fully funded by Brookes, working on campus and in the surrounding areas, with additional police cover being in place in the early hours of the morning, when we know residents have particular concerns.

“Given that this cover has been in place over the last ten days, we are surprised about the level of incidents described.

“There have been no incidents logged by Thames Valley Police, and only a small number of complaints logged with Brookes, which we will, of course, follow up.

“Our PCSOs have seen no evidence of the vandalism referenced in the letter.”