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Businesses in Ritherdon Road in Balham are, together with the Balham Partnership, hosting a street party this Sunday.

The event is designed to raise the profile of the road, and the businesses in it, while also offering something for the community and raising money for the Thomas Pocklington Trust. It runs from midday until 4pm and if you go along you can enjoy anything from free wine tasting to children’s entertainment.

The council is currently promoting its scheme for reduced road closure fees for The Big Lunch in July. And Streetbook are offering to pay the reduced fee for you if you use their site to help organise your party.

Still nothing organised on the Shaftesbury Park Estate though, which is making me feel guilty, despite my lack of organising skills.

I have commented, in the dim and distant past, about the resurgence in street parties in the borough (and I suspect elsewhere). Evidence of the Big Society perhaps.

Next month sees the now annual Lavender Hill and Northcote Road street parties and St John’s Hill have theirs later this year. Not forgetting the first Summer in the Square just over a week ago.

The others that are hopefully going to take off are the The Big Lunch, on 18 July. I think it’s fair to say that the council has learnt a lot about how to manage large numbers of these parties from last year (which I think was the first time we’d ever had large numbers of applications outside of the traditional royal weddings) and are now looking at low fixed fee to cover the legal costs for parties being organised this year.

Last year I did think I should try and organise something, although frankly I know that event organisation is not my strong point and it would probably be a disaster. Is anyone else planning something for SW11 though? Currently the Big Lunch’s website is a blank – will there be lots of flags before the 18 June deadline for road closure applications?

[And if anyone fancies doing something on the Shaftesbury Park Estate somewhere, I’d happily muck in.]