Street party guidance

Street parties are considered a small-scale, low-key celebration and should require little planning or organisation that would normally be associated with major events.

Your street party event must be organised for residents and neighbours only, and your application for a street party must be received at least six weeks prior to the date of the party.

Consultation

All residents within the road, including those that are not invited or fall outside of the required road closure should be consulted via letter, allowing for a two-week period to receive responses. You will need to provide us with this feedback when making your application.

The consultation should also include any side roads that will be directly affected by the road closure. We will be able to provide you with a sample consultation letter when you make your initial enquiry.

Closing your road

For a standard street party and road closure, there is no requirement for Public Liability Insurance.

For small estate roads and cul-de-sac’s, basic red and white barriers and ‘road closed’ traffic signs will be adequate in most cases.

For road closures requiring diversions, you will be required to employ a qualified traffic management contractor to install and decommission the diversion(s) with signs and cones that conform to Chapter 8 of the Traffic Management Code of Practice.

Any applications for busier roads may be met with feedback and objections when the application goes out to consultation via the District Council to other agencies and third parties, including the emergency services, transport operators and the local highway authority. This should be a consideration from the outset.

Street Meet

If it is not possible to close off your road, or finances do not allow for this, it may be possible to hold a ‘Street Meet’ within your road. This would mean that the carriageway remains open, but that the festivities could take place on Warwick District Council greenspace land. Not all roads will have greenspace land that is owned and maintained by Warwick District Council.

If this is an option for you, the consultation process will still need to take place and all required forms will need to be returned. Where asked about road closures and traffic management, please complete by stating that the party will be taking place on a grass verge.

In certain circumstances, where a road closure is not possible and there is no Warwick District Council greenspace land within the road, it may still be possible to hold a ‘Street Meet’ whereby residents pitch trestles, tables and chairs on their own land and participants can gather on the footway, not hindering the carriageway. The road must have two footways for this to be possible.

Street party etiquette

Street parties are considered a small-scale, low-key celebration and should require little planning or organisation that would normally be associated with major events. We therefore kindly request that on the highway there are no:

  • food or drink concessions
  • amusement or entertainment concessions
  • fees charged
  • BBQ’s, hog roasts or any preparation of food
  • charity collections made
  • inflatable features such as bouncy castles

Out of courtesy to fellow residents that may not be in attendance, we ask that the party be completed and that the carriageway be fully open again by no later than 10pm.

Before the carriageway is reopened, we kindly request that a litter pick takes place, that the street is returned to its original condition and any road notices that have been placed on street furniture (lampposts or benches) are removed.

Street party applications involving Public Houses or any premises licenced to sell alcohol

Should any street party application involve a Public House (pub) or any premises that has a licence to sell alcohol, or if a pub/premises is in the same street or within the road closure area, such applications will have to complete the event application process, rather than the street party application.

This also applies if the street party is open to the general public and not for local street residents only.

Applying for a road closure

Once you have completed your consultation and submitted all of the required paperwork, we submit your application to our own consultation process, which will take one month. When that is completed, we apply to Warwickshire County Council for the official road closure.

When that is received, we will send you a copy and also visit the site before the closure date to install some road notices on street furniture within your road, confirming the closure arrangements.

We are not accepting street party applications at this time. We will update this page when applications are open again.

Useful Links

Gov.uk street party guidance