Calder Valley Community Land Trust
Origins & Context
Calder Valley Community Land Trust (CVCLT) was established in 2014 as a community benefit society with charitable status, founded to help address and meet housing needs in the Upper Calder Valley – the communities of Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, and Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire. The timing was significant. Hebden Bridge and Todmorden had already begun a process of ‘bottom-up’ regeneration: Hebden Bridge Town Hall was the first asset transfer in the country, with a charitable body taking on the building. This community-led ethos was already embodied in the area when the CLT came into being.
The idea is straightforward: a Community Land Trust provides a legal way that land can be held in perpetuity for public good. With land values removed from the calculation, new houses can potentially be built more affordably. CVCLT is member-controlled, governed by over 300 members who each hold one £1 non-transferable membership share.
Housing Projects
Hebden Bridge High Street
One of CVCLT’s most symbolically significant projects aims to bring new life back to High Street – the site of housing cleared during 1960s slum clearances. The original High Street was densely populated with over 70 dwellings as well as shops and workshops. Following the clearances, the street became a small tarmacked lane. Several residents of Hebden today remember living on High Street. Planning permission for 20 affordable rented homes on this site was unanimously approved by Calderdale’s Planning Committee in March 2023. The scheme, developed in partnership with Connect Housing, represents a return of residential life to a place that was systematically erased.
Ferney Lee: Housing & Enterprise Centre
CVCLT is developing 19 homes for affordable rent and 23 affordable rental offices on the site of the former Ferney Lee Home for Older People in Todmorden. The development is part of the £17.5 million Todmorden Town Deal investment programme. Planning permission was granted in June 2024. The homes will be built to Passivhaus standard, meaning low energy use, low levels of embedded carbon, high thermal insulation and air-tightness. They will be powered and heated with air source heat pumps and solar panels with electric car-charging. Connect Housing will manage them once occupied. CVCLT aims to own one block, Connect the other. They will be let via the council’s Keychoice system to local people in identified housing need.
Retrofitted Properties
In April 2024, CVCLT completed purchase of a property in Hebden Bridge below market cost, with grant funding from Homes England and favourable mortgage rates negotiated with the seller. Refurbishment is underway to social rent standards. Additionally, CVCLT is retrofitting the former warden’s cottage at Jerusalem Farm (leased from Calderdale Council for 20 years), bringing the long-term empty and deteriorating property back into use.
Community Land & Heritage
Beyond housing, CVCLT acts as legal custodian for significant heritage and community buildings. The organisation holds Fielden Hall in Todmorden, a Grade II listed former art school gifted by previous private owners. The building has been restored and is available for hire. CVCLT is also negotiating to take over the decommissioned Grade II listed Hebden Bridge Signal Box, working with Network Rail to preserve it for community use.
In partnership with the Todmorden Almshouse charity (John Eastwood Homes), CVCLT is developing six two-bedroom bungalows for independent living in Walsden, designed as models of sustainable, environmentally friendly construction.
Model & Governance
CVCLT is volunteer-run with ten trustees elected by the CLT’s members. The organisation is firmly rooted in community consultation. When established in 2014, open workshops were held in Hebden Bridge and Todmorden asking residents to help suggest suitable housing sites and what kinds of homes they would like to see built – asking how adventurous the community wanted to be with low-energy housing. This participatory approach continues to guide the work.
The CLT has been shrewd in partnerships: Calderdale Council transferred land at nil cost (removing land costs from the affordability equation – an enlightened approach increasingly rare as local authorities maximise receipts from asset sales). Connect Housing partnerships have enabled CVCLT to reduce risk and benefit from experience, while maintaining community ownership and control.
Why This Matters
Calder Valley CLT shows that in post-industrial valleys facing depopulation and unaffordable housing, a community-led approach can reclaim forgotten places – literally bringing back streets cleared 60 years ago. It demonstrates that building affordable homes at scale requires partnership (with housing associations, councils, funders) but that community organisations can lead the vision and retain ownership. It proves that heritage buildings and community land can be held collectively on behalf of local people. Most importantly, it shows a community that has been economically devastated and left behind can, through patient organising and shared purpose, begin to take its future back into its own hands.