How I ‘activated’ my street

There are 25 houses on our road with around 70 people, and we already had a well-connected neighbourhood before the pandemic. It started four years ago when I suggested we hold a street meeting to discuss activities that we could do together. Since then we’ve had a Christmas party every year, a community apple-pressing every autumn, and we throw an annual street party, during which the children make an updated map of the street, including people who have just moved in, so we all know each other’s names.

In between, the whole street stays in touch by email. We also have a Facebook page where we can offer or request all kinds of things, from flowerpots and seedlings to tools and children’s toys. One neighbour volunteered to make a list of skills we could offer each other, as we have builders, an electrician, a gardener, cooks, artists and musicians who live here.

Since lockdown, there has been even more going on – checking in on neighbours, offers of help with shopping, making sure everyone has enough loo roll. And requests such as this on our Facebook page: ‘I am sewing buttons on to scrub caps for the NHS, but have run out of good-sized ones. They are to hook masks on to save them rubbing people’s ears.’ People have been sharing gardening tips (thanks to a weekly Zoom call with an experienced gardener on the street), and giving away plants and eggs, as one neighbour keeps chickens.

New neighbourhood groups like ours began springing up across Frome in the early weeks of lockdown and I felt that it would be useful for the street organisers to share what was working well. So, with the help of Frome Town Council, we mapped the neighbourhood groups and now street ‘activators’ have regular Zoom calls, which have proved useful. This network has the potential to help build stronger communities within Frome, whatever the future holds.