Read the report by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge
This follows on from recent work by the RSA on social capital.
“In his RSA CEO Lecture 2025, Andy Haldane highlights how weakened social bonds harm communities in our connected world. He calls for a rebuilding of trust and unity, addressing issues like economic growth, equity, and wellbeing. Andy’s vision offers hope to counter growing divides and create stronger, more resilient societies.”
Above – The RSA: Counting the cost of Bowling Alone
One measure of social and cultural infrastructure in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough? The fact that only one public hustings (that the public could turn up to for free) took place in the run up to the mayoral and county council elections – and even that one still has over £200 of outstanding costs not yet covered due to the not cheap venue costs. (Unless someone steps in quickly via this link!)
The lack of in-person public debates for the mayoral and county council elections reflects the lack of social and cultural infrastructure
If we had a critical mass of politically-aware but non-party-political, highly-regarded civic institutions in and around Cambridge, we would not have had just one publicly-accessible in-person hustings for the Combined Authority mayoralty. The same goes for Peterborough.
The fact there was only one publicly accessible event that took place represents and reflects the collective failure of civic society in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
I’ll write that in a bigger font to make the point.
The fact there was only one publicly accessible event that took place represents and reflects the collective failure of civic society in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
How will the incoming county councillors and the incoming mayor choose to respond to this? That’s up to them. But I suggest they not only look at their own political party structures and systems, but also at the wider broken civic society structures and ask what policies they need to bring in to rebuild them so that we don’t ever face such a situation again.
With the new unitary authorities likely to start taking shape from the end of this year, we should start preparing for those first public debates now, so that come the elections for those new councils in 2027 there will be enough of a geographical spread of venues that no communities get left out. Because just over 200 views of that single hustings video shows that hardly any voters get the chance to hear the candidates in their own voices and at length. And I daresay that even BBC Cambridgeshire will have struggled with getting a critical mass of listeners (especially younger listeners) to hear the exchanges from yesterday. The fact that the first point in the summary was about whether the mayoralty should exist (I was against it in 2016 when it was first suggested, and am still against it now) speaks volumes.
Libraries, community centres, and cultural events – what value?
Mindful that Cambridgeshire County Council is responsible for public libraries – a number of which are embedded in community centres (such as at the Clay Farm Centre in the new Trumpington developments in the southern Cambridge fringe) means that this report is directly relevant to local government.
“However, the impacts of a well-functioning library, community centre, or cultural event are not always immediately visible or easily quantifiable. Yet without appropriate tools to understand and evaluate these entities, their significance and value are easily overlooked by policymakers. Our framework addresses this issue, offering a flexible and transparent approach to the measurement of social and cultural infrastructure.”
The problem is that the Chancellor signs off the allocations for councils and also maintains the vice-like grip on the control of councils’ abilities to raise funds independently of central government. Therefore until The Treasury’s culture and mindset changes in a way that enables councils to have a much wider range of independent revenue raising powers to pay for public services, any new framework such as the one proposed by the Bennett Institute is going to be limited. Unless…
“Unless what…?”
Unless that framework can persuade senior Treasury civil servants who advise the Chancellor that their current centralised grip on tax and spend policies represents a huge diseconomy of scale and a massive economic and institutional inefficiency that prevents local councils from investing in, for example the types of social infrastructure that can deliver quantifiable (as well as qualitative) improvements in people’s wellbeing. For example what impact could Cambridge have on its massive infrastructure gap if it were able to tax the wealth bubble still expanding and having a detrimental impact on our city? Again, The Treasury won’t let it. They cannot even build a small lifelong learning college because even those need ministerial sign off – as the previous government confirmed in writing.
It has to go beyond persuading The Treasury to provide more grant funding to local councils because the power remains within Whitehall. Furthermore, the current structures make comparisons between UK cities and the rest of the world meaningless because so many other comparator countries do not have such restrictive tax-raising powers. Cambridge found this out the hard way when the BBC compared its proposed congestion charge with Gothenburg in Sweden. Comparing Cambridge’s messed up local governance structures with a larger municipality that has greater revenue raising powers *and* its own tram system (and not mentioning these!) was the wrong way to go about it.
And one final thing
The Bennett report concludes with:
“Our hope is that in making the case for this new approach to the measurement of social and cultural infrastructure, we have provided a useful tool for stakeholders and furthered the debate around these crucial assets and their value to communities across the country.”
I’d like to see some definitions of who ‘stakeholders’ and ‘policy makers’ are – ones that the general public can understand. Who counts as a policy maker and why? Who doesn’t count as a policy maker or a stakeholder? (In one sense we all have a stake in the outcome of major public policies, don’t we?)
This matters even more for a place like Cambridge where so many conversations about the city’s future are taking place in absence of input from the residents and even the elected councillors. It’s as if the Pro Vice Chancellors of the University of Cambridge have a greater influence on the Government’s thinking than the executive councillors of the city, district, and county councils. Is that right?
Eddington vs Abbey Ward – the disparity of social infrastructure
What would Abbey Ward – one of the most economically deprived wards in Cambridge, be like if Abbey People had the facilities and resources that Eddington has been provided with by the University of Cambridge? (And were not able to tap into the wealth of the local population either). It’s one of many reasons I have issues with Eddington as a development because central government enabled the University of Cambridge to design and build the neighbourhood as an exclusive community without having to provide housing for people on social housing waiting lists. (Something that infuriated city councillors at the time back in 2017). Combined with the lack of direct bus access on the Stagecoach network (The same goes for Cambridge University’s West Road Concert Hall) it’s no surprise that few city residents without the academic connections are aware of, let alone get the opportunity to take part in the range of activities put on in West Cambridge.
I hope the new approach pioneered by the Bennett Institute will be applied to Cambridgeshire so that we come up with a new set of publications and maps that show councillors, officers, and the general public the current spread of our social and cultural infrastructure (from buildings and accessible open spaces to the locations of active community and activity groups) to inform future public policy decisions.
Food for thought?
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The Cambridge Town Owl 