Neighbours are key to less isolation
Streets Alive believes that being friendly with neighbours can reduce isolation and loneliness of all generations in streets.
The launch of The Silver Line and recent reports by the Campaign to End Loneliness about the high level of loneliness of older people would suggest that this is unique to older people.
But at the same time research by the Prince’s Trust suggests that ‘more than a third of young people in the UK aged 16 to 24 do not feel part of their local community’.
Streets Alive’s work in streets over 12 years suggests that it is our mobile and diverse lifestyles that are resulting in loneliness of all generations.
Meeting neighbours to start with is key to this, so our experience of working with residents in streets mean we are able to help.
As a result Streets Alive is planning an Age Friendly Streets campaign to be trialled in Bristol in 2014/15. This would include the many activities that residents who have held street meets have found that helps neighbours of all ages to have a low level of contact from time to time – to be friendly but not necessarily friends.
Chris Gittins, the Director and founder of Streets Alive said ‘Neighbours are a critical piece in the jigsaw of our social fabric where we live. But, we have to find new ways of social living with our busy and diverse lives in our streets which are usually full of cars. With us living less local lives we have to be proactive and can’t rely on bumping into people.’
