With St Valentine’s Day next Monday, 14 February, a bit of love is to spread cross Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

Local organisations including BCP Council, faith groups, schools, businesses and others are joining forces to help local residents living in streets across the borough to renew their sense of belonging, support and friendliness, as widely experienced in the first lock-down during the pandemic.

As part of BCP council area’s ‘As One’ campaign, the message, ‘Fill your street with friendliness’ will start to be displayed from St Valentine’s Day on hundreds of large banners across the borough. From the spring, dozens of local As One events will be put on to help the message take root in each locality.

The idea is to encourage more of a sense of connection, kindness, friendliness and belonging between people who live on the same street and aims to be a huge boost for elderly people, young families, single people, everyone.

Dozens of churches and other faith groups, community centres and other BCP area partners are preparing to host As One tea party events, each for their own neighbourhood. There, residents from each local street will be introduced to the idea of starting a Street Association for their own street, with the aim of keeping the friendliness going long after the pandemic has lifted. In many local areas, an As One memorial service will also be held, ahead of the tea party, to remember the anxiety, isolation, loss and bereavement experienced by so many over the last two years and to help bring a measure of peace and ‘closure’, with the tea party then seeking to take the key ‘positive’ of the pandemic – the burst of community spirit – and help it to flourish for the long term.

The two-metre banner, introducing a design which is being picked up in other parts of the UK, focuses its encouragement on ‘your street’, because a Street Association led by local residents has been shown over 10 years to be a popular way of getting people together, organising things like a children’s party, a barbecue, quiz night or trip away, just for one’s own street. With an agenda of ‘friendship, fun, belonging, a helping hand’, the prize is that everyone gradually gets to know everyone, friendliness is released, isolation is addressed, fun is had and practical help flows to residents who may need it.  Community events are anticipated to take place from the spring, with the Platinum Jubilee as a key incentive to get neighbourly communication going in time. The strap-line for Street Associations is ‘Love my street’, making a St Valentine’s Day launch most appropriate.

Residents are encouraged to find out more about starting a Street Association where they live – see www.as-one.uk/bcp for more details of how to get it going. There is also an invitation to help spread the As One vision on social media:  Facebook: /asoneuk; Instagram:@asoneuk; Twitter: @asoneukcampaign.

Cllr Jane Kelly, lead member for Communities, BCP Council, said:  “BCP Council has an ambition to create vibrant communities where everyone plays an active role and feels a sense of pride where they live and As One really supports that. We have seen a growth of friendships, mutual support, and a sense of community in individual community areas during lockdown and in responding to the pandemic, and As One across the BCP Council area will ensure that we maintain that as we come out of Covid restrictions and move ‘back to normal’. I would encourage every resident across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole to find out more about Street Associations, and, with others in their road, to be involved in this simple way of bringing people together at the most local of levels.”

The Rt Rev Karen Gorham, Bishop of Sherborne and acting Bishop of Salisbury said: “In these days of fruitful partnerships between churches and civic authorities, I was delighted when the diocesan Aldhelm Fund awarded a grant of £5,000 to the As One initiative for the BCP area. As Christians, we obviously give a high priority to loving our neighbours, and an increase in the number of Street Associations can only lead to real friendships and a growing sense of community at street level. The prospect of neighbours, of all faiths and none, becoming friends in the road where they live has the prospect of leading to all sorts of transformative action.”