Paul is our first member of staff, in post since October 2021. Paul has long experience of working in senior positions in the social economy locally, having been the CEO of the pioneering doorstep recycling social enterprise Kerbside Calderdale which (in the period before recycling was undertaken by the local authority) collected recycling from 25,000 households. More recently he has been Enterprise Manager for the Elland-based social business Project Colt, a furniture recycling project which also helps vulnerable adults back into employment.

Simon is a chartered surveyor by profession. He has chaired the CLT since its inception, and is also the Chair of the Todmorden community-led regeneration body (the ‘town team’) Todmorden Pride. Simon brings to the CLT both his professional experience and his strong local knowledge.

Karin has worked as a chartered accountant (CIPFA – Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) and has more than twenty years’ experience working in the NHS, in fields of research, information, business planning and finance. She was Finance Director for an NHS Trust for 7 years, with responsibility for finance, information, business planning and contracting, followed by 15 years as a Project Director at the University of York as a research health economist. Her skills at business planning and the writing of business plans are particularly valuable to the board.

Derren has been passionate about social housing provision ever since he started working for Hyde Housing Association in South East London in August 1999. He has largely worked as a Business Systems Trainer working with Neighbourhood Offices, Lettings Officers and Repairs Contractors. In 2016 Derren changed roles to work with a large Civil Engineering company BAM Nuttall.

He has been passionate about Older Persons Housing and providing Community based or Sheltered Housing which he believes there is a great need for within the Calder Valley. Derren has experience of projects with short term Lets, providing housing for young homeless people or housing for families in need, and, within Hyde Housing, Shared Ownership and commercial leases. These can provide significant capital gain for the organisation and indeed has been very successful for Hyde who are now actually building their own houses for rent and private sale.

John, a physicist by training, has a long history of living in, and working for, housing co-operatives in London. He was Chair of Solon Co-operative Housing Services in the 1980s, and has also held positions with Birchfield House Co-op. Now retired, he is active in local organisations and is also at present learning modern Greek.

John chairs the Housing Management Sub-Committee

Sally has worked professionally in many aspects of housing development, for charities, local authorities, housing associations and government (including the organisation now called ‘Homes England’).  Until recently she was currently Company Secretary for a social enterprise successfully running a volunteer led community shop and community room in the village of Midgley (in 2010, the Association was able to purchase the Old Co-operative building in Midgley, following extensive local fundraising and successful applications for a number of grants including from charities and the Big Lottery Fund).  She and her partner have  just completed a newbuild home on the edge of Halifax, built on passivhaus principles.

Richard’s background is in the private sector, in particular the financial services sector. His career has been largely spent working for large Financial Services companies, designing and developing business propositions from the idea stage, then running projects to deliver and communicate them. He has a particular interest in environmentally sustainable and healthy architecture. Richard’s experience in project design and planning is particularly valuable.

Dai has lived in Mytholmroyd with his family for almost thirty years. He is a trustee of the Hebden Bridge Town Hall Café and previously served on the board of the Hebden Bridge Community Association for six years. He was previously an Executive Director for two local authorities where he secured £23m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to renovate the grade 1 listed Buxton Crescent. He was also a director of Ascent Housing which secured £8m from Homes England towards a £28m programme to build 275 new social-rented homes in Staffordshire. He brought 4,000 council houses back into Council management, improved the repairs service and made the homes more energy efficient. He is a passionate advocate of good quality housing and community-led initiatives.

Oliver is a researcher in the charity sector and joined the land trust to become more involved in the local community to address affordable housing needs and local ownership of community assets.

Oliver has worked in programme, grant writing and reporting for international development, asylum seekers, and employment and training organisations in New Zealand and Australia. After moving to the UK in 2015, he shifted towards research including special education and electoral politics at UCL and in public services at the Institute for Government. He has worked at NCVO for over three years as a Researcher and now Senior Research and Insight Officer, where he specialises in the state of the charity sector.

Adele is a housing professional with over 30 years experience and a strong track record of successfully delivering difficult projects. Adele has experience in delivering housing development in the challenging Pennine environment, having worked as Head of Housing Growth and Regeneration for Kirklees Council for 8 years. Adele’s particular passion is delivering affordable, supported and specialist accommodation and during her time at Kirklees she successfully delivered a number of Extra Care schemes for older people and supported living developments for clients with learning disabilities.

She is a graduate in housing with expertise covering strategy development, options analysis including risk management, identifying delivery routes and funding sources, procurement, partnership working and on-site delivery.