Street party organisers Zoe, Jonny, Liam and Ruth are inviting neighbours to Giesbach Open Space tomorrow (Saturday)

YOUNG renters in London can often bounce between flats and neighbourhoods without integrating into the communities that exist there.

But a group of housemates in Archway’s Giesbach Road are bucking the trend by organising a street party to connect with their neighbours.

It started with a casual conversation about setting up decks and speakers in their front window to play music into the street, and wound up with a £500 grant from Islington Council to get the neighbours together for games and music in the green space at the bottom of their road.

One of the organisers, Liam Orme, moved to London two years ago for a Masters after working in student climate movements back home on Canada’s west coast.

He said: “For me, it’s really important to live in a place where everyone’s proactively building community together. There’s certainly a lot of community already bubbling beneath the surface here that I did not appreciate before starting this, and I think that’s something that’s hard for renters to tap into.

“It’s part of a longer process about making this home.”

With flyers and a WhatsApp group to help the organising, Mr Orme and his housemates have already got to know their neighbours better – and hope to connect further over music, food, a watermelon-eating contest and more at the street party tomorrow (Saturday).

The venue – Giesbach Open Space – already has local significance in its own right, as the spot where the first V2 long-range rocket to hit Islington exploded on 5 November 1944.

The 35 casualties and 219 injured are commemorated with a small memorial plaque.

Nearby residents are welcome at the street party, taking place from 1pm-5pm in Giesbach Road Open Space, N19.