NEIGHBOURS are getting together to plan their street parties as the Royal Wedding draws closer.

Redbridge Council has recieved 16 applications to close roads in the borough on April 29, when Prince William is due to marry Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey for street parties, and it is thought many more residents will organise informal gatherings in their neighbourhoods.

About 250 are expected to mark the big day in Kensington Drive, Woodford Green, with a tea party, waltzing and fancy dress parade

Music will be provided by a DJ and 98-year-old Don Turner, who will play his cross between a banjo and a ukelele.

Mr Turner has lived in nearby Rivington Avenue since 1950 and said he had vague memories of a street party there for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

“We got a good crowd,” he added. “We’re hoping for a good crowd now. I like to help out, but I’m limited on what I can do because of my age, so I’ll be playing my banjo-lele.”

Party organiser Lesa Skelt, 43, said she wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the Silver Jubilee street party she attended as a child for her children, who are aged between four and nine.

“I want to try and re-live what I had for the jubilee when I was about nine or 10,” she said. “We’re going to be very traditional, because that’s what everyone wants.

“I can’t believe we’ve got so many people coming. Some people said they were going to go away, but now we’re having a street party, they’ll stay.”

Another neighbourhood getting ready for a party is Oak Hall Road, Wanstead.

Resident Sarah Bond, 35, said the party would veer from the traditional, with barbecues instead of a tea party.

“It looks like it will be really good, as long as the weather holds,” she said. “If it rains, we’re going to wear raincoats, in the British spirit.”

The deadline to apply to the council to close a road for a party has now passed.

However, parties can still be held on drives and verges off the street.