03 September 2010Residents of Sevenoaks District are being encouraged to set up a community get together next month and enjoy a street party for the first time in many years.
On Sunday 19 July the national Big Lunch project is encouraging people everywhere to stop what they are doing and sit down with other members of their community to enjoy a celebratory Sunday lunch.
For many communities this would be the first time such an event has taken place since the marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1981, or even the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.
Already around seven ‘big lunches’ have been set up by residents in Sevenoaks District, with another six streets expressing interest in holding a ‘big lunch’.
For full details of where these are, along with details of how to set up your own lunch, including resources to promote it, visit the Big Lunch website.
Cllr Pat Bosley, Sevenoaks District Council Cabinet Member with responsibility for Community Wellbeing, says: “For many of us it will be decades since we have enjoyed anything like this. This really is a wonderful idea to bring communities together, speak to those neighbours that you may not really know, and to have a thoroughly enjoyable day!”
The Big Lunch project has been set up by the Friends of the Eden Project in Cornwall in response to resident research that suggests communities are becoming weaker.
Whilst 9.6million UK residents regularly used social networking sites in 2008, according to research conducted by the BBC, 97% of UK communities have become more fragmented in the last 30 years.
In April of last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted a survey of 3,500 people. The biggest single concern identified, across the social spectrum, was that communities are weak and people are increasingly isolated from their neighbours.
For further information visit the Big Lunch website www.thebiglunch.com.
