Social Capital

The first bank in Chipping Norton opened in 1834 - a branch of the Stourbridge and Kidderminster Banking Company. It was managed by two drapers and a seed merchant. There are no banks in Chipping Norton now - an incentive for local businesses to go as cashless as possible

A publisher of coffee-table magazines - the sort that used to pile up in doctors' waiting rooms before smartphones - writes in 'Cotswold Life', "Move [to Chipping Norton] for £1,000,000 and get a double bay fronted house on New Street, ripe for an update but with many original period features. It has a graceful sweep of stairs, huge bedrooms, a large garden and an outbuilding studio-workshop". The town name is still associated with the 'Chipping Norton Set' - the social clique of influential individuals that orbited local resident and Prime Minister David Cameron as he launched the slow asphyxiation of British public services. A place, then, linked to affluence and privilege

Our daughter want to school here, very successfully. I remember a parents' evening when the head-teacher told us that the school had the highest proportion of free school meal students in the county - making the point, I think, that perception and reality of the town are mis-aligned. The people who have refurbished and re-named this ex-bank (a few yards from the old Stourbridge and Kidderminster) make a similar point:

"Opportunities for children and young people, skills and attainment rank in the bottom ten percent in England. Deprivation affecting children is in the lowest 20%. Employment prospects for school leavers are in the lowest five percent nationally. Individuals and families are failing to thrive, and access to support services is limited”

They have created a community hub, funded by private businesses, with some professional staff and many volunteers (whose selflessness I admire enormously), to try to address the social decay beneath the Cotswold gloss. In their own words: isolation, poverty, lack of opportunity, domestic abuse, mental health, debt, loneliness, and homelessness. The prime movers are the Anglican church, and the Christian ethos is much in evidence in their public image, which may or may not be attractive to those they seek to help

I suppose this is a perfect example of what Cameron (adopting ideas of Fox News presenter, Steve Hilton) called 'The Big Society'. Or what has to happen if the State cancels the social contract and replaces it with paternalism