Jubilee celebrations brought neighbours together: survey The way Britain came together for the Jubilee may go some way to reversing a marked decline in community spirit over recent decades. Researchers found that the number of neighbours we know by name has halved in the past 30 years. However, millions of small acts of kindness still go on daily around the nation. Three-quarters of those questioned said their neighbours helped them in the past two years, including by looking after pets (18%), taking in parcels (63%) and keeping a spare key (24%). The number of people reporting problems or disputes with their neighbours fell slightly, from 44% in 2010 to 42% this year. The top three complaints were noise (affecting 22% of people), general behaviour (11%) and children's behaviour (9%). Based on these figures, Co-operatives UK calculates a Good Neighbour Index which compares the state of community relations against a baseline figure of 100 for 1982. This shows that things have got significantly worse over the past 30 years, with the figure now standing at 48.5. But, perhaps thanks to the Jubilee, this is 5% up on last year's figure of 46.2. Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, said: "The UK is at heart a co-operative nation and the Jubilee celebrations gave us a permission slip to come together. With twelve million adults taking part in local events, this has been the largest recorded programme of voluntary social action in modern times.