Who we are

Calder Valley Community Land Trust Ltd (CVCLT) is a member-led community benefit society with charitable status which has been established to help address and meet housing needs in our part of Calderdale.

We are part of the fast-growing community-led housing network, where local people play a leading role in solving local housing problems, creating genuinely affordable homes and stronger communities in ways that are difficult through current mainstream housing.

CVCLT is rooted in the communities of Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. Established in September 2014 at two public meetings, we are constituted under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, as a member-controlled organisation. We have charity status with HM Revenue and Customs (exempt charity registration no. EW35609). We currently have more than 250 members.

CVCLT is also an Investment Partner (IP) with Homes England and a Registered Provider of Social Housing (RP). This enables CVCLT to have access to grant-funding for its developments from the Government’s Affordable Homes Programme.

Some key documents

Progress so far:

We have successfully completed our development of six independent living bungalows for older people to Walsden and the bungalows are now occupied.

CVCLT has been gifted the ownership of the Fielden Hall (previously known as the Fielden Centre), the beautiful community centre in Todmorden. We are working closely with the Fielden Centre Association, to help them in their work of running a vibrant and successful community resource. We’re delighetd that in March 2021 we completed the purchase of neighbouring houses to complete our ownership of what we’re calling Fielden Acre.

We are working with other community groups in Hebden Bridge to ensure a long-term sustainable future for the heritage (Grade II listed) signal box, now decommissioned.

We are exploring a potential partnership with Calderdale council in a proposed redevelopment of the area of Todmorden town centre near the market, where we are interested in the possibility of new affordable residential homes.

We have been working for the past four years to bring new housing back to High Street, Hebden Bridge, the site of housing cleared in the 1960s slum clearances. The CLT’s view is that new housing should wherever possible be on sites of former housing or on brownfield ex-industrial land, rather than on greenfield sites.  Disappointingly our planning application was rejected by the planning committee by majority vote in February 2019 and we are now exploring the right way forward.

 

EXECUTIVE MANAGER

Paul Brannigan 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.

Trustee Board

Simon Brearley

Chair

Simon Brearley 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 Lowson

Treasurer

Karin Lowson 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.

KaLA WILD

Secretary

Kala grew up in Hebden Bridge and has raised her 4 children here, she is committed to preserving and developing community assets and social housing in the area. Kala has over 25 years experience in the Voluntary and Community Sector, including the delivery of housing for vulnerable people.

Richard Henderson

Richard Henderson’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.

Melvin Coleman

Melvin Coleman has been a Director & Treasurer of the Incredible Edible network since 2011 and was formerly Treasurer of Incredible Edible Todmorden. He has taken responsibility for registering and protecting the trade mark as well as maintaining the accounts.

A graduate in law and a retired Chartered Accountant, his career has taken him from North Sea oil to publishing and thence into the not for profit sector, finally as UK Finance Director of Amnesty International. His current responsibilities include chairing Amnesty’s international charity. His voluntary sector activities previously included Treasurer of Liberty, helping found and run the country’s first publicly funded law centre, the Public Law Project and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.

Melvin chairs the Board of Trustees’ internal Audit Committee.

John Berry

John Berry, 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. 

Abigail Gregory

Abigail Gregory has lived in the Calder valley since 1993.  Her distinguished career in higher education stretches back over thirty years and she is currently a Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor and Professor of Comparative Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.  She brings to the Board her direct experience of overseeing a £70m capital build development at the University, and also knowledge and experience of equality and diversity, business development and marketing and strategic planning.  She was awarded an MBE for services to exports in 2019.

Anne Sutcliffe

Anne Sutcliffe is a legal professional who specialises in Insurance law and has acted for housing associations amongst other clients for a number of years. Her ability to take a risk based view on matters and strategy is of particular use to the board. She is active in the local community with special interests in developing & growing local communities and supporting education through the linking of groups. She is also part of a community project encouraging the exchange of clothes and accessories in order to develop community spirit, reduce consumption and raise awareness of unethical consumer habits.

Sally Hinton

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.

Dai Larner

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 Chan

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.

Dave Collins

Born in Bradford, after completing an Economics degree I worked in the local textile industry, which gave me a good grounding and experience in financial systems. 

I joined West Yorkshire Community Accounting Service on its inception in 2000. I was the Bradford Community Accountant for 20 years till my retirement.  This gave me an understanding of the marvellous and efficient work done by small charities and voluntary organisations.  Also it gave me a good insight into the issues and pressures facing treasurers, trustees and finance workers.

I would like to use my experience in a volunteering role.  I have lived in the Calder Valley since 1993 initially in Hebden Bridge then Todmorden, Sowerby Bridge and finally Mytholmroyd!

Trustee interests: Trustees have chosen to voluntarily report any directorships held in incorporated bodies, any officer positions held in unincorporated associations, and current employment (where this might be relevant).