ORPINGTON celebrated its first ever "tweet-up" last night.

Gesti restaurant in Orpington High Street hosted the event which included 12 participants from the nearby area.

The idea was the brainchild of website founder Darren Weale who started coollocal.co.uk to celebrate local activities and businesses. The site has been endorsed by retail guru Mary Portas and Orpington MP Jo Johnson.

He joined forces with Margot Rohan who runs community website orpingtoncommunity.weebly.com and they celebrated Orpington by meeting and tweeting.

At the meeting business leaders and residents spoke about how to use social media to better connect people and communities.

Mr Weale said: "Using social media to prevent isolation is more important than ever. We need to connect with people and ensure older people aren’t left lagging behind."

For more information, see #OrpingtonTweetUp on Twitter.