MP John Denham has called on residents, politicians and city planners to join forces to fight the rise in multiple occupancy homes.

Mr Denham has seen for himself the city's changing population with fewer families and more students, migrant workers and flat dwellers taking their place.

"I am trying to move house. It is worrying that every house I have been to there is a family moving out of the city," he said.

As a former Southampton University student he has also lived in a so called house in multiple occupation (HMO.

Mr Denham came face-to-face with around a hundred concerned residents during a meeting of the Southampton Federation of Residents' Associations held at the city's Central Baptist Church where the rise of HMOs came under the spotlight. The meeting came after Southampton Test MP Alan Whitehead presented a Bill to parliament to allow councils to clamp down on HMOs through a change in planning law.

One Polygon resident, Katie Brown of Wilton Avenue, said: "It used to be a very beautiful road. "Now it's a mess with overflowing bins, rubbish, pizza boxes and coke cans. It's atrocious."

Another Wilton Road resident spoke of his frustration at the impossibility of ever having a noise abatement notice served on neighbouring noisy students returning from nightclubs at 3am - outside the council's environmental health team's working hours. As revealed in Saturday's Daily Echo the city council has also started to consider bringing in extra licensing rules to ensure more of these homes are decent, safe and properly managed.

Mr Denham is also backing a change in the law that would bring HMOs under new planning rules. At present most do not require separate planning permission because if there are six or fewer tenants they are considered to be in the same category as "family housing".

Mr Denham said: "If there was a common voice from elected councillors, MPs and residents associations, we will achieve a great deal more than working at it individually."