“IT was a lovely place to live. It really was a lovely community – all the little areas were.

“It had all that a small town has to offer – these little communities where children had the freedom to walk into the city and enjoy growing up.

“Both my children think Durham was an ideal place to grow up. There was no fear of difficulties or trouble.

“People would leave their back doors open – it would have been unthinkable to lock them. We never used the front door. People would come, use the house, make themselves a cup of tea and stop off here on the way to Durham.

“It seems strange very strange now, but it was completely ordinary then. You built up a completely different relationship with those around you.

“You looked after each other’s pets – in fact, our cat got too much food and we had to ask the people down the street to stop feeding. I do miss having neighbours.”

Listening to Jackie Levitas talk about Waddington Street, Durham City as it was when she arrived in the late 1970s is both fascinating and deeply sad.

Then, there was not a single student on her street. Now, the 78-year-old poet, teacher and ex-journalist is the only so-called permanent resident left.

Jackie’s the most extreme example of a problem that is replicated in streets across Durham city centre, where locals have moved out; their homes turned into houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) for five, seven, ten students or more.

The folk of Waddington Street used to all help keep a small community garden behind their homes. Now Jackie pays for a gardener.

“It would distress me too much to see it go to rack and ruin,” she says.

Asked about the impact of the student influx, she replies: “Until this year, it was hell on earth. Last year, the neighbours were very bad – the worst I’ve had. They got noisier and noisier.”

There was constant loud music, late-night parties and her young neighbours were “very rude”, Jackie says.

She called the university police several times. But things only improved after she agreed a pact they could hold parties when she was away.

Thankfully, this year’s occupants are much better behaved.

Jackie's current battle is to stop the former County Hospital, which overlooks her home, being turned into accommodation for 363 students - a development she says would be a "monstrosity".

“It’s not just that it’s opposite me but it’s in a city that I’ve come to see as a special place. I will do everything in my power while I live here to help enhance that."

She is equally unimpressed by the Village@ The Viaduct, a 220-bed student block at the bottom of her street, which she says is "half-full".

But it's not all bad: Jackie has much positive to say about Shaw Wood Gate - another new-build project right next to the Village, but which comprises family and executive homes.

"They will be neighbours," she says. "They will be here in the summer."

Looking ahead, Jackie says there are grounds for hope - but the council must take its "duty" to enhance Durham seriously and adopt a citywide, rather than "piecemeal", approach to planning.

"Final year students don’t want to be in institutional blocks. It’s as if they took the wrong path at some point. Durham could be like Yarm – one of the best high streets in England."

She could, of course, could make a healthy income by moving out and letting her home. But she won’t go, at least not yet.

“People have told me to leave. But I love my house. It’s been a very happy place for me. My children were very happy here. I still have great friends in the area.

“I love Flass Vale (a nearby nature reserve). I appreciate walking into the city centre. The railway station is nearby. It should be a perfect place to live.

“I’m stubborn. I’m a fighter. I feel a sense of duty. I don’t want to leave Durham in a worse state than when I arrived. This is my neighbourhood.”