A neighbourhood building social capital

Local Trust’s CEO Matt Leach reflects on the multifaceted role of social capital in improving lives in our most deprived neighbourhoods.

It was a cold and damp Friday morning on the Newington Estate on the outskirts of Ramsgate when I arrived there with Baroness Hilary Armstrong, but inside the Newington Community Centre it was warm and welcoming.

On the first of her visits as Chair of the new Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON), the former Social Exclusion Minister was determined to ensure the Commission’s work was informed by the real-world experience of communities across the country – by listening to the challenges they face, but also seeking out evidence of how local people are making a difference when it comes to turning their own lives around.

Newington has a strong story to tell. Not much more than a decade ago, according to local residents, it had very little going for it – there was scant civic life to unite and connect local people. It was known for high levels of deprivation and plagued by anti-social behaviour and violent crime.

It is still deprived, with persistently high levels of child poverty and unemployment. But in many other ways Newington feels like a place that is on the up.

Redefining a community

At the heart of that transformation has been a rebirth of a shared sense of community. Some of that comes from the work of Newington Big Local. For the last ten years, this resident-led group has worked relentlessly to reknit and redefine a once fractured community, focusing on shared creativity, food, green spaces, opportunities to bring people together, and helping children and young people to thrive.

Alongside that has been the re-emergence of the local community centre as a vibrant, inclusive space for local residents to share. It has recently benefitted from a major investment of funds from the local authority, Thanet Council, to help expand its facilities and grow its reach.

The council and Big Local have both contributed to the rebuilding of something that is critical to the success of any place: neighbourhood-level social infrastructure. This takes the form of community-based organisations and activities that bring people together, building trust, friendship and mutual self-support, alongside places to go that can accommodate that activity. These places offer familiarity, a sense of shared identity, and a broader focus for community life.

If we’re going to change the world for the better, we’re going to have to do it together. And [Newington] have already made a good start on making that a reality.”

All of that together helps define, nurture and grow the social capital of Newington, something Robert Putnam defines as “the connections between individuals, including social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that result from them”.

Next year will mark thirty years since Putnam published his essay Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital and twenty-five since his book of the same name helped popularise and mainstream social capital as a key part of the policy debate.

Neighbourhood networks

Putnam’s work helped inspire a generation of policymakers and community practitioners, not least in the implementation of the New Deal for Communities, launched by Hilary Armstrong when leading work on neighbourhoods for the last Labour government.

If it has been somewhat neglected (at least in the United Kingdom) over the last decade, there is increasing evidence of its reemergence as a driving force behind new delivery approaches, as our government seeks solutions to challenges right across the policy landscape – and not just in relation to community regeneration.

The government has committed to developing a neighbourhood health and care service. This builds heavily on insights related to the importance of social capital as a primary determinant of health.

There is also increasing evidence of the role of social capital in developing networks at a community level which help support family life. Having these connections in place could help avoid the sorts of family breakdown that can lead to children going into care – often creating a negative impact on individual children and their families. It could also decrease pressure on public services and finances.

The link between social capital and economic growth – highlighted by the last government in its Levelling Up White Paper – is clearly something that an administration focused on achieving growth will find increasingly hard to ignore.

New thinking on social capital

Over the next few months, in partnership with Demos and the national network for neighbourhood improvement (3ni), Local Trust will be contributing to the debate through the launch of a series of papers highlighting the latest thinking and insight on social capital and the major challenges facing Britain. The first of these, an essay by Andy Haldane and David Halpern looking at the importance of social capital to help deliver economic growth, will be published today. Future papers will be looking at the relevance of social capital to social mobility, health and wellbeing, crime and anti-social behaviour, and outcomes for children.

Local Trust will also be hosting events and seminars, bringing together the widest range of academics and practitioners from across the world, to explore how social capital can be harnessed to deliver on the government’s mission challenges.

In his most recent book, The Upswing, Robert Putnam sets out an optimistic vision of how a rediscovery of shared civic life can underpin a positive societal transformation. When talking to residents on the Newington estate with Hilary Armstrong, it seemed to be a vision that was shared. If we’re going to change the world for the better, we’re going to have to do it together. And they have already made a good start on making that a reality.

Find out more about the Social Capital 2025 series and access the papers as they are released.