Chipping Norton usually finds itself in the news because a few celebrity residents live nearby. But as well as Prime Minister David Cameron and TV celebrity Jeremy Clarkson et al, the town is clearly host to a vibrant business community too, with businesses from the north Oxfordshire market town taking five of the nine prizes at the recent West Oxfordshire Business Awards.

CETA Insurance is one of the largest private employers in the town and took three prizes, including the overall West Oxfordshire Business of the Year. Director Sandie Schofield said they never considered going anywhere else.

She explained: "We are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year and we have been based in town all the time. The vast majority of our staff come from the town or the surrounding villages and we use local suppliers whenever possible."

In fact CETA has been in the same place, Cromwell Business Park, for all of those 20 years, moving units as and when growth dictated. The company started with two people and now employs more than 100 staff, so that obviously worked.

The directors of CETA noticed that all businesses need places to start and grow, just as they had done, so the company rents out a number of small offices in one of the old Cotswold stone buildings on the town’s market square.

Ms Schofield said: "They never seem to be empty for long — in fact they are all full now and we have half a dozen people on the waiting list. We think they are a good next step for local people, working from home, who outgrow the spare bedroom or the kitchen table."

The town lost its last traditional large-scale employer when furniture maker Parker Knoll closed its factory ten years ago. The jobs that have sprung up in its place are created by small businesses, so a mix of smaller offices suits.

Mary Reeves-Smith manages Cromwell Business Park which has recently seen increased take-up by adapting office accommodation to fit the needs of local businesses.

She said: "We set up one of our most recent units, Fairfax House, as a self-contained business centre. It had already attracted tenants, then, as it filled, we split up the open plan space on the ground floor to create five more suites, catering for businesses from one to six people. They filled up within the year," she said. “The mix of accommodation allows business to stay with us. As tenants grow they can move out of the business centre into their own units. That has already happened with two companies.”

Retail businesses also seem to be bucking the trend in Chipping Norton. Until recently there was only one empty shop in the town centre. A second is now empty but due to relocation to a more convenient industrial estate unit in town, not because the business has folded.

Businesses of all types have recently banded together under the banner Experience Chipping Norton (ECN) to promote the great things about visiting, living and working in Chipping Norton.

The group was initially formed to bid to be one of Mary Portas' Pilot Towns and although that wasn't successful, a grant of £10,000 was made from the national Town Team Partners programme.

Gail Savage, an ECN committee member who owns boutique dress shop All Dressed Up, said: "We have used the expression a 'modern day guild' to describe aspects of what we are trying to do. ECN is a group which can help all local businesses, community groups and charities in and around Chipping Norton.

"Businesses will be featured on the new town website and can get help with marketing, for example with social media skills and commercial photography. It means members get help for their own businesses as well as in a group."

Even manufacturing is making a comeback, albeit on a smaller scale. Medical device manufacturer and distributor Owen Mumford built an extension to its factory in Chipping Norton a few years ago and more than 300 of the 700 employees in Oxfordshire now spend some or all of their time there.

Other successes in the WOBA's included the Lido, winner of the Green Business Award, and The Theatre, a finalist for two awards. Design and marketing agency Mark-making won the Social Media Award with the Literary Festival coming runners-up and Chipping Norton Builders was a finalist in the Small Business Award.

There's no doubt that, as with the rest of Oxfordshire, technology allows small businesses be successful independently and in loose partnerships with each other.

The mix of business and culture that Chipping Norton provided at the WOBAs much of which has gone forward into the Oxfordshire Business Awards, is an indicator of the vibrancy the town is experiencing.

In the heart of a recession businesses are thriving and being publicly recognised for their success, not just seeing it on their balance sheets.