SOON the students will be back. It is that time of year. Summer subsides to make way for autumn, which shakes out its misty skirts and dislodges the leaves. And, less poetically, ushers in the nightly drunken hollering.

For some reason, the time for inebriated shouting is usually between two and four of the am variety.

Those of us who have to be up for work in the morning do not always fully appreciate unrestrained glee at such an hour – or, come to that, the high-volume swearing either.

It is difficult to know, when woken, whether those doing the bellowing are indeed students, although the relative quiet during the holidays suggests as much.

Considering our own domestic circumstances, and the increasing number of students in York, it was interesting to read a newspaper headline the other day which said: “Minister to tighten house rules in student enclaves.”

John Denham, the communities secretary and MP for Southampton, a university city like York, has long campaigned against the impact on towns and cities of large groups of students living in what are called HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation).

Well, there are plenty of those in The Groves, where we have lived for more than 20 years. Our own house contains multiple bodies too, if five people and one new and slightly crazy cat counts.

Of course, what this acronym actually refers to are houses in which almost every room has been given over to accommodating student tenants, with the front rooms usually turned into bedrooms, leaving limited communal areas – sometimes only a kitchen, occasionally a lounge or dining area of some sort too.

Imposing such a high density of students is bound to effect an area and is likely to test the tolerance of any non-student neighbours.

As someone who was a student in the age before modern times began, which is to say the late 1970s, my feelings are mixed.

The old student in me urges restraint, as does the father in me. Our eldest has only just stopped being a student, for now at least, and his siblings may well end up at university or college. My wife was a student too, once, so we all have been students or could be students at some time.

So that’s the fair side of me dealt with. Now for the inner ranter who forgets his own past to grumble when students stream along the middle of Eldon Street, leaving no room on the road for middle-age men in estate cars.

Yet to those students, I will seem like just another older person, if they notice me at all, which is unlikely, and that is strangely sad. If I were more spiteful, I might point out to the boy students having barbecues in the front garden or bare-chested and kicking a football down the street that one day they will end up like me. That, yes, once I was a student carefree and drunk a little too often, but that everything passes, apart from the occasional lack of total sobriety.

What cannot be denied is that too many students do damage an area, introducing an element of shabby impermanence, with the student houses usually looking scruffy and uncared for. Some are smartly maintained, but many are not, and whatever condition they are in, the sheer number of students passing through does leave long-term residents to wonder if they still belong.

Moving house would resolve that uncertainty, but that isn’t possible for us right now, or for many people who live surrounded by students. So perhaps the only answer is to banish the grumpiness and try to enjoy the sometimes chaotic company of so many young people in term-time party mode, however irritating that may sometimes be.

As for Mr Denham, all power to him, but his attempts to sort out student enclaves will come to nothing much. He will disappear in a puff of electoral smoke before long and the students will continue to disrupt the streets at night.