
Over 100 North Tyneside streets applied to the council to organise a street party for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, from Shiremoor to Wallsend, North Shields to Killingworth, Forest Hall to Monkseaton. Around 40 of these were our regular play streets and more than 60 applied direct to the council.
Street parties have always been associated with royal events in the UK, from jubilees to weddings – I think my first involvement in closing a street to traffic was, aged 8, in 1981 when my mum and our neighbours organised a street party for Charles and Diana’s wedding. But street parties have also been used to celebrate or commemorate anniversaries of war, such as VE Day, and other notable dates (such as the millennium).
The informal, impromptu and “socially distanced” street parties on the 75th anniversary of VE Day (8th May) during the 2020 lockdown attracted considerable attention, positive and negative, but demonstrated the value of these kinds of neighbourly events at a time of crisis, and when so many were spending so much time at home and in their neighbourhoods.
Street parties have also been popularised as regular, community-building events by The Big Lunch (launched by Eden Communities in 2009) and the Great Get Together, a street party campaign created by the Jo Cox Foundation, after the MP’s murder, “to bring people together to celebrate what they have in common”.
There are certain events, then, that seem to legitimate road closures, in a way that doesn’t seem possible at other, ordinary times. When we’re given “permission”, hundreds of thousands of us choose to transform our streets into spaces for fun, for eating and drinking, for playing, for connecting and befriending.
We often hear that when neighbours do come together for a street party, they suddenly realise what their street feels like when it’s filled with people rather than cars, they start to imagine what might be possible on their street, and they question what might happen if they did this more often.
This is where play streets come in.
A play street is like a very low-key but regular street party.
We simply put up barriers (usually wheelie bins with a Road Closed sign attached) and create space for neighbours of all ages to play and meet.

Sometimes there’s food and drink, occasionally there are organised games, and some neighbours bring out chairs, but these are all added extras, not essential to a play street. With a play street, there’s a lot less pressure to organise a fabulous event.
The majority of neighbours still have to be on board, but because play streets happen regularly (usually monthly, occasionally fortnightly or weekly), it’s OK to miss one or two – so long as there’s enough children and adults around, you can go ahead. A couple of people just need to take responsibility for putting the Road Closed signs out and that’s it. It doesn’t have to involve everyone everytime.
The process of application is very similar to that for a street party, with two big differences – 1) we, PlayMeetStreet, help you every step of the way and we liaise with the council on your behalf, and 2) we can apply for regular dates for up to a year in a single application.
So, if you’ve enjoyed a jubilee street party and think you might like to do something like this again, get in touch.

Have a look at these step-by-step instructions. And complete this form to let us know you’re interested and help us to prepare the next step.
Or come along to this free event at the Linskill Centre in North Shields on Tuesday 14th June at 6.30, where we’ll be talking about how to set a play street up on your street.