On 10th April a group of our neighbours living at Streatfeild Avenue came along to meet other neighbours and talk about what it feels like living here and what their hopes, ideas, concerns are.
The idea of this meeting came from Anita, who lives down the road.
We got to know Anita on a Street Party we organised 2 years ago and since then she has been very active in supporting us in organising street events.
We were delighted that eight people came along and talked together, most for the very first time. They were of of different ages and ethnicties and lived here for between 1 year and 34 years. A very strong message that came through from everyone was that they were happy here and cared about the neighbourhood. At the same time they all had some ideas about making it better.
After everyone had introduced themselves and found out a little about each other they shared what they like about living in Streatfeild Avenue. They agreed that It is a good location – shops, public transport, school, town hall, leisure centre and other facilities being close by. It was also important that their relatives were near and most of their neighbours were friendly.
Then the neighbours talked about the problems as well. Some of the issues mentioned by people were the anti social behavior, rubbish, vermin, too little space for parking, traffic congestion and noise and trouble in the night from the local pubs.
Everyone then joined in the “come into the circle” activity and we discovered who had used the leisure centre, what languages people spoke, how long they had lived here and a lot more.
People were split up into two groups to come up with ideas to address the problems they had highlighted and how to make the street better. Some of their ideas were:
Neighbours help each other out – e.g. let people know the number to ring for rubbish collections
Have cups of tea and talk together
Make gardens and Ringles Court more secure
Start a neighbourhood group.
At the end it was agreed to see if there would be more interest in setting up a neighbour group. They were all willing to meet up once a month to see what they could do. They are hoping to include more people in the future meetings.
Here are some quotes from the participants about what they have valued about the meeting:
“Happy to meet today, hope others will come”
“Meeting new people, discussing what to do for our street”
“I like the way people are caring. The positive and negative things. I am happy to meet new people”.
