RESIDENTS who claim their lives are blighted by late night noise and disturbances from St John's College students say "real progress" has been made in their attempts to get a good night's sleep.

People living in the St John Street area of York, near the college, claim the students create "havoc" during term time.

They claim that, in addition to making a lot of noise, the students urinate and vomit in the street, and dump takeaway debris.

They were strongly opposed to extensions to the students' union bar, approved by City of York Council last month.

So a meeting has been held at which an informal residents' association has been set up to represent local residents and their noise concerns.

From the association, six residents, drawn from St John Street, St John's Crescent and Huntington Road, will sit on the College Community Liaison Committee to work directly with students and staff at the college.

It was also agreed at the meeting that a sign will be put in the students' union building itself saying: "Shut up or we'll close up". An out-of-hours answer machine for the logging of complaints, accompanied by follow-up the next day, will also be set up.

St John Street resident Alec Richard said: "We are optimistic, the college is definitely responding.

"The point we tried to make to the college is that there is an alternative to our forbearance and that is to stop the source of the disturbances.

"That seems to have been taken on board. Progress has been made."

George Brichieri, students' union president, said: "The college's Community Liaison Committee has been running for two years now and is delighted to expand membership of the group.

"Both the college and the students' union take their responsibilities to local residents very seriously and endeavour to follow up all concerns brought to the meetings with positive actions.

"The students' union is currently reaching all new first-year students during Welcome Week with the 'Respect Local Residents' message.

"Also, the launch of this year's campaign 'Silent Students - Happy Homes' (SSHH) is imminent, which will reinforce the importance of respecting local residents."

Updated: 10:50 Friday, September 27, 2002