Organise something in your neighbourhood

Getting to know the people who live nearby helps create a sense of belonging and shared identity in your local area. It also helps to strengthen connections and trust in our wider communities and contributes to a happier neighbourhood for everyone.

Here you will find information about different projects you can run in your neighbourhood to bring the community together.

Set up a play street for children and adults

A play street involves residents closing off their streets to through traffic for a few hours weekly or monthly so that children can play out more safely and neighbours come together – making streets friendlier and more fun for all. Five neighbourhoods registered to run a play street in their neighbourhood as part of our pilot in 2018 and they have been a great success.

To learn more about play streets and the application process visit the play streets page.

Organise a Jumble Trail

A Jumble Trail is a collection of garden sales in close proximity to each other, within a set area taking place on a given day. Anyone in the area can host a stall, selling anything from unwanted furniture, music, books and clothes, arts and crafts. Visitors and locals can download a map to discover the trail. Jumble Trails are proving popular across the city!

Check out the Jumble Trail how-to and watch our video to learn more about Wanstead's successful resident-led Jumble Trail.

How to Jumble Trail

1. Appoint a Jumble Trail champion
The Jumble Trail Champion is in charge of organising what is going to take place on the chosen day. They need to decide on the location, date, time and whether or not stall holders will have to pay. This money can go towards a local charity or cause and you can use a number of event registration platforms online to manage this. For example, you can use www.eventbrite.com for this. The champion then creates an online map where all the registered stalls holders can be pinpointed. For example you can use Google’s My Maps for this.

2. Let people know about your Jumble Trail
Once you’ve decided on the details for your Jumble Trail you can promote this in your local community. Combine these with flyers, word of mouth and social media to let people know about your event.

3. Get stall holders to register online
Everybody who wants to host a stall needs to get in touch with the Jumble Trail Champion. As people register, the Champion will add details to the online map to show the households that are selling goods, where they are located and what they are selling. Stall holders can also post photos of their goods in order to gain some interest in advance. The Champion will regularly share the online map on
the events page as well as update everybody on how many stalls have registered to build up momentum and excitement.

4. Enjoy your day
There’s nothing left to do on the day but sell your items, try some of the neighbours’ goodies and get to know people in your community and it is not a bad way to raise a couple of quid for a good cause!

Set up a residents’ group

Resident groups play an important role in strengthening communities and ensuring residents' voices are heard. They can also be a great way to develop community spirit, improve opportunities for people to meet socially and be a great platform for raising funds to improve local facilities, such as community gardens or play areas.

Organise a community get together

Why not organise a simple get together with neighbours over a cup of tea? Perhaps you can organise something as part of the national Big Lunch. You can also organise a street party to mark an occasion or the start of summer.

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