Neighbours’ picnics on parks, playing fields and other green spaces

Although using your street right outside your house is best you may not be able, have time or want to hold your street party there. But if there is a green space nearby, such as a park or playing field, we offer some ideas below about how you may be able to use it for a small neighbours’ get-together.

Every council requires a lot of event management including insurance to use parks for ‘events’ and some for other green spaces and you may not want to go through with this.

But here are two scenarios:

1. Up to about 30 neighbours from defined houses, privately without external publicity, decide to go to a park or other open green space to be together, run around with the odd game, have a picnic with no BBQ, take their litter home and do not disturb other park users. They probably do not need permission for this one time. Such non-‘events’ happen in many parks on summer weekends all over the country, often without councils knowing or caring about it. If this were to happen regularly other park users might complain. This could be arranged at short notice with limited planning.

Or scaling up:

2. If there are a lot of people, have a BBQ, tables and chairs, a gazebo and have music they would be having an ‘event’, would be disturbing other users and so would need permission, insurance and perhaps a risk assessment etc.

And there are levels of organisation between these two scenarios.

So if residents can’t use their road which is best for a street party, they could hold a ‘street picnic’ on such a green space and consider what they are doing exactly and whether permission is needed?