How to organise your Jubilee street party

This year, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, and Sunday, June 5 has been earmarked for the ‘Big Jubilee Lunch’ celebrations, when more than 10 million Brits are expected to host or attend street parties in her Majesty’s honour. 

Anyone is welcome to host a street party during the celebratory weekend of Thursday, June 2 to Sunday, June 5, but a government application form should be filled out to allow councils to put traffic regulations in place to close a street off to traffic. You can apply here.

If you plan to serve alcohol or play loud music, then you will need a Temporary Events’ Notice, which can be applied for here. 

Food and drink to serve

Once all your permissions are sorted, you can start to think about what you will offer people to eat and drink. You could suggest everyone who comes along brings a dish with them.

You’ll also need to organise plates and cutlery, napkins and cups too.

If you’re cooking or baking something yourself, think about people’s dietary requirements, so make sure people are aware of the ingredients that have gone into what you make.

How about baking a Victoria sponge or making some coronation chicken?

We’ll be making some of the country’s favourite sweet treats and savoury snacks for you to purchase too for the weekend and you can even pop in and order in advance.

Alcohol can be served if you have permission, but you must not charge for it. It’s best of British to serve tea, coffee and cold drinks such as lemonade and ginger beer.

The Big Lunch has lots of ideas of foods to serve during the celebrations.

Decorating

If you want your street party to look the part, it’s all in the decoration. Place long trestle tables down the middle of the street and use brightly coloured tablecloths to cover them.

You can hang bunting and flags from the sides of the tables and get creative with table decorations – use flowers or paper decorations, provided it’s not too windy! This could be a great opportunity to get all the children on the street to do some crafting before the event.

Bunting and flags can really help create a party atmosphere. String bunting from houses so it criss-crosses over the road and hang flags from windows, balconies and even between lampposts along the street.

Fingers crossed the great British weather holds out and we can all enjoy fantastic street parties and have a real community-fuelled celebration on the Jubilee weekend.