2025-03-31-accounts - National Community Land Trust Network

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NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK

TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS 2024-25

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Table of Contents............................................................................................................................. 1 LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS...........................................................................................2 TRUSTEES AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT..............................................................................................2 TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT............................................................................................................3 STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT..............................................................................3 OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES.................................................................................................................4 ACTIVITY AND OUTCOMES...............................................................................................................6 OBJECTIVE 1: To develop and roll out patterns, products and services to deliver CLT projects.6 Key achievements and moments........................................................................... 6 OBJECTIVE 2: To raise awareness of CLTs...........................................................................................9 Key achievements and moments........................................................................... 9 OBJECTIVE 3: To help CLTs set up, run well and have maximum impact.....................................12 Key achievements and moments......................................................................... 12 OBJECTIVE 4: To campaign for a more supportive local, regional and national policy environment......................................................................................................................................... 14 Key achievements and moments......................................................................... 14 OBJECTIVE 5: To develop the Community Land Trust Network as a sustainable organisation 17 Key achievements and moments......................................................................... 17 REFLECTIONS ON THE YEAR...........................................................................................................19 FACTORS AFFECTING OUR WORK......................................................................................................19 RISKS...................................................................................................................................................... 20 THE NEXT YEAR............................................................................................................................... 21 FINANCIAL REVIEW.........................................................................................................................22 OVERVIEW............................................................................................................................................. 22 RISK........................................................................................................................................................ 25 UNRESTRICTED INCOME..................................................................................................................... 25 RESTRICTED INCOME...........................................................................................................................25 RESERVES POLICY.................................................................................................................................26 STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES’ RESPONSIBILITIES............................................................................. 28 INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF NATIONAL CLT NETWORK CIO... 29 Statement of Financial Activities and Notes to the Accounts………………………………….……….30

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

The National Community Land Trust Network is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, registered on the 7th May 2014.

Working name: Community Land Trust Network Charity number: 1156952 Registered Office: 34-35 Butcher Row, Shrewsbury, SY1 1UW Bank: The Co-operative Bank, P.O. Box 101, 1 Balloon Street, Manchester, M60 4EP Independent Examiners: Joshua Kingston BSc., FCA Burton Sweet Limited, 5, Farleigh Court, Old Weston Road, Flax Bourton, Bristol, BS48 1UR. Lawyers Wrigleys Solicitors LLP 19 Cookridge Street Leeds, LS2 3AG

TRUSTEES AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Trustees

Kym Shaen- Wilkinson (Chair of Trustees as of January 25), Bristol CLT Colin Glen, (Vice Chair) London CLT Claire Louise White, Bronllys CLT Hilary Knight, Arundel CLT (Appointed July 2024) Julie Abbey-Taylor, Lavenham CLT (Stepped down November 2024) Lorraine Hart, non-member trustee (Appointed January 2025) Nicholas Boys-Smith, non-member trustee Paul Kelly, Crosby & Waterloo CLT (Stepped down October 2024) Peter Duncan, (Former Chair of Trustees) SCATA CLT Sonia Bassey, L8 Matters CLT (Appointed July 2024)

Senior Management Team

Tom Chance Chief Executive Rachel Chance Finance and Operations Manager

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT

The Trustees present the Trustees' Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2025. The Trustees confirm that the Annual Report and Financial Statements comply with the current statutory requirements, the requirements of the company's governing documents and the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) applicable to charities.

The report is approved on behalf of the Trustees by

Kyu Shatu-Wilkinsou

Kym Shaen-Wilkinson

Dec 16 2025 Date

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

The Community Land Trust Network CIO is a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation, number 1156952. The governing document is the Community Land Trust Network CIO constitution.

The Community Land Trust Network is a membership organisation. Our membership consists of Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in England and Wales. We also have non-voting members which are unincorporated community groups aiming to establish a Community Land Trust, and associate members which consist of other voluntary organisations, local authorities and private sector bodies which support and work with Community Land Trusts.

The Community Land Trust Network is governed by its Board of Trustees, which is elected at General Meetings by its members on a one-member one-vote basis. The term is three years and trustees can serve a maximum of two terms. When recruiting new trustees the vacancy is advertised to our members through the members’ newsletter and posted on our website and social media. From time to time we use recruitment boards such as charityjob. According to our constitution existing trustees can review applications against a skills matrix identifying skills which may fill gaps on the existing board, candidates may be rejected if they do not fit the skills matrix. A majority of Trustees must also be a member of a Community Land Trust which, in turn, is a member of the organisation. The Constitution provides for a minimum of three Trustees to a maximum of nine Trustees, of which no more than three can be non-members. All Trustees give up their time freely and no Trustee remuneration is paid.

The trustee induction checklist includes key reading material, and a formal meeting with the chief executive and chair of trustees. There is a yearly budget set aside for trustee training and development.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

The Board has one subcommittee, the Finance Committee, consisting of Trustees advised by members of the Senior Management Team. It meets in advance of Board meetings to scrutinise finances in greater detail and make recommendations to the Board as appropriate.

In line with our Conflicts of Interest policy, Trustees declare all personal and professional connections on a register of interests. At the start of each meeting, declarations are made for any potential conflicts of interest and the relevant Trustee recuses themselves from any decisions that the charity must make regarding a conflict of interest.

The trustees consider the key management personnel to be themselves along with the CEO and Finance and Operations Manager. Day-to-day management of the organisation is delegated to the Chief Executive and financial management is delegated to the Finance and Operations Manager. The Chief Executive meets with managers and the whole team on a regular basis. Activities are carried out within the parameters of a Business Plan approved by the Board of Trustees. The board also approves the yearly budget, three year forecast and all policies which also shape the charity’s work.

We hold a salary review policy which states that pay must be reviewed annually for cost of living, taking into account inflation and sector awards. We have six salary bands from assistant to chief executive. Every three years we appoint an external consultant to perform a benchmarking review using a database of salaries. They are benchmarked against location, sector, size of organisation and charitable status.

The charity has formed an informal partnership with three other organisations, called Community Led Homes. The partnership enables us to better achieve our strategic objectives of creating a supporting enabling environment for CLTs. A limited company (company number 11803055) has been set up to hold the intellectual property of any joint activity through this partnership, and one of our trustees (Peter Duncan) is one of four Directors for the company.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

The charitable purposes of the Community Land Trust Network, as set out in our Constitution, are:

To promote the voluntary sector for the public benefit by providing advice, information, training, assistance with funding and other services or support that enhance the quality and work of CLTs (or prospective CLTs) which are (or will be) (i) established for exclusively charitable purposes in accordance with the law of England and Wales; and/or (ii) Voluntary Bodies (as defined below), and in particular to:

a. relieve financial hardship by supporting the provision of affordable housing, hostels or other accommodation through CLTs;

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

b. advance education and vocational training and the creation of education and employment opportunities by supporting CLTs which provide workspace, buildings and/or land for use on favourable terms;

c. promote the maintenance, improvement or provision of public amenities by supporting the work of CLTs which undertake this work for the public benefit;

d. assist in the provision of facilities for recreation or other leisure time occupation in the interests of social welfare with the object of improving the condition of life of local communities by supporting the work of CLTs who make such facilities available;

e. advance environmental protection or improvement by supporting the work of CLTs which promote the preservation and enhancement of open green spaces; and

Such other exclusively charitable purposes as may be from time to time determined by the charity Trustees.

The Board of Trustees agreed a Business Plan for 2023-26 that achieves public benefit through the following strategic objectives:

Objective 1: To develop and roll out patterns, products and services to deliver CLT projects

Objective 2: To raise awareness of CLTs.

Objective 3: To help CLTs set up, run well and have maximum impact.

Objective 4: To campaign for a more supportive local, regional and national policy environment.

Objective 5: To develop the Community Land Trust Network as a sustainable organisation.

The Board of Trustees has considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit and can confirm that this was referred to when reviewing the Community Land Trust Network’s goals, objectives and activities and in planning future activities.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

ACTIVITY AND OUTCOMES

OBJECTIVE 1: To develop and roll out patterns, products and services to deliver CLT projects

Outcome

Communities, industry and local government have the body of expertise to facilitate CLT development at scale, including:

More funders see CLTs as viable propositions, and provide finance across all stages of CLT projects
Regional and local policy supports the provision of public land and finance for CLTs

Key Performance Indicators

Key	Performance Indicators
#	KPI	Target	Baseline	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
1.	Number of afordable homes owned by CLTs	2,000	1,885	1,959	1,967	1,954	1,980
2.	Percentage of CLT projects supported that have progressed a stage in the current year	15%	10%	14%	11%	14%	13%
3.	Number of other assets owned by CLTs	100	93	92	92	95	106

RAG Rating: Orange

Key achievements and moments

CLTs own an additional 108 assets
CLH Growth Lab established with the UK Cohousing Network
Research and partnership work establishing CLTs as place stewards

Over the course of the last year, CLTs bought and/or developed a further 108 assets, taking the total number over 2,000, a significant milestone for our movement. By far the majority of these are affordable homes, but the year also saw CLTs buy species-rich flower meadows and woodlands for conservation in Sussex and Shropshire, and another convert a disused newsagent into a community shop.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Minsterley Meadows, Middle Marches CLT’s most recently purchased meadows. These are rich in endangered orchids and will be stewarded by the community in perpetuity.

Around one in six CLT projects also progressed by a significant milestone in the past year – securing a site or asset, submitting a planning application or having it approved, starting to build or completing. This is on target, as development projects tend to move slowly, showing that progress has generally been quite good in spite of the challenging circumstances.

However, in the past year we have continued to see funders withdraw, finance become more scarce, and the body of expertise supporting CLTs shrink. Market conditions have also been awful for every stripe of developer, and many projects have stalled. So there is a significant backlog of community-led projects, aiming to develop over 7,000 assets, seeking suitable finance, technical advice and partnerships and often not being able to find what they need.

We continued to support all organisations and individuals working with CLTs by facilitating regular zoom calls and an online forum.

To support enabling organisations to develop more effective and sustainable business models, we continued to collaborate with the UK Cohousing Network on our joint Community Led Housing (CLH) Growth Lab. The lab gives teams funded capacity; a structured product design and development programme; coaching and challenge sessions; and access to business consultants. We concluded the pilot, funded by the Laudes Foundation through a grant to the new European CLT Network, working with teams focused on rural social housing, suburban intensification, and left-behind high streets. With support from Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, we worked with a consultant to further develop a financial solution for enablers of rural social housing, developing a fund concept that we have discussed with two social investment fund managers and with Homes England. We hope to take this forward, subject to core funding, in the next year, taking

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

steps towards either establishing a partnership with a fund manager or launching our own special purpose vehicle and seeking investment from Homes England and others.

We secured funding from the Nationwide Foundation to run a second cohort of the CLH Growth Lab from October 2024 to April 2025, and recruited two teams focusing on a cluster of public land disposals to CLTs in Liverpool, and reevaluating the Mutual Home Ownership tenure model from the perspective of consumers and the financial services industry.

The Enabling Water Smart Communities has also progressed. We began to work more intensively on a stream of work to look at ‘community led stewardship’ as an enabling action – solving problems with water assets being installed in new housing but not maintained or monitored. This has included some collaborations with the community-led housing enabling hub for Greater Manchester looking at large-scale private sector-initiated developments and exploring whether the CLT model could be incorporated into this.

Related to this, we completed our research project with Dark Matter Labs and the European CLT Network looking at community-led place stewardship of large sites as an alternative to private management companies. We looked at five case studies, including some CLTs, where public open space, community centres, commercial freeholds, energy infrastructure and other assets were vested into community bodies to manage and steward, and developed detailed recommendations for the wider implementation of this model.

We were able to apply the learning and frameworks from these two ‘large sites’ projects to our pilot ‘policy lab’ on New Towns, mentioned under objective 4.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

OBJECTIVE 2: To raise awareness of CLTs

Outcome

Communities, industry and local government have the inspiration and knowledge to initiate CLTs, including:

Increased awareness of opportunities among potential doers and landowners
Regional and local policy supports the provision of public land and finance for CLTs

Key Performance Indicators

#	KPI	Target	Baseline	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
4.	Number of fully formed CLTs	375	359	360	362	302	293
5.	Number of CLT projects with industry partners	200	183	194	196	177	176
6.	Number of non-public sites sold to CLTs	100	77	79	81	83	83

RAG Rating: Green

Key achievements and moments

National conference in central London attended by 300 delegates
Significant report on racial diversity in the community-led housing sector released
New resources developed for land for nature-focused CLTs

The Board maintained its previous decision to give less priority to public communication with the aim of stimulating new CLTs, and more priority to strategically raising awareness among industry, landowners and other stakeholders that might help CLTs succeed. In light of this, the continued interest of communities to set up CLTs and our success in industry outreach leads us to score this objective as ‘green’.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

The Community Land Trust Network’s 2024 Building with Communities Conference opening plenary session.

In June 2024, we held our first major national conference since 2017. We had nearly 300 delegates, most of whom were members and directors of CLTs, but also a significant minority from local authorities, housing associations, developers and NGOs. We received a lot of extremely positive feedback from delegates, and were successful in raising the profile of CLTs and our manifesto asks with some of our key audiences.

In October 2024, a research project we had helped to initiate and fund published its findings. The full title was ‘Community-led housing for all: Opportunities and challenges for black and minority ethnic community-led housing’. This emerged from our Cohesive Communities Fund project and the Community Led Homes adviser training programme run by the Confederation of Cooperative Housing. The report gives us important findings and recommendations on how we can better raise awareness of CLTs and community led housing among communities of colour; better understand the existing diversity (or lack of) in CLTs across England and Wales; and to better tackle the systemic barriers and discrimination that both make CLTs such as potentially powerful model but also even more difficult to pull off by people of colour.

Over the summer and up to October, we also worked with Shared Assets to research the relevance of the CLT model to agroecology and nature restoration. There are a few CLTs doing this, we think more could be interested, and many communities interested in those issues might find the CLT model suitable. We then brought stakeholders from our two networks together for some peer learning and to look at how we could better raise awareness and support communities to pursue these objectives, whether through CLTs or other models. We are seeking funding to continue this work.

In November and December, we did a major clean-up of data on CLTs and projects that we suspected might have folded or gone dormant. This meant that the total number of CLTs,

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

projects and some other KPIs went backwards in Q3 and Q4, but gives us a more accurate picture of the CLT movement. Most of the 160 fully formed CLTs and unincorporated groups we removed from our database of active CLTs had closed because they could not access land, finance and support – the main barriers our business plan aims to address.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

OBJECTIVE 3: To help CLTs set up, run well and have maximum impact

Outcome

CLTs have improved knowledge, skills, capacity to be an effective CLT, including:

More funders see CLTs as viable propositions, and provide finance across all stages of CLT projects

Key Performance Indicators

#	KPI	Target	Baseline	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
12	% of fully formed CLTs that are members of our network	75%	53%	52%	51%	65%	67%
14	% of members that have engaged with our support in the last 12 months	80%	53%	59%	69%	67%	67%

RAG Rating: Green

Key achievements and moments

New online member platform launched
130 CLTs engaged in peer learning through our network
13 new CLTs established with our support

This was a successful year for our membership services, given that most CLTs join our network, engage with our services, and find them valuable.

As mentioned above, we cleaned up our data, removing dormant or closed CLTs in Q2. This showed that we were performing better than we had thought in terms of the percentage of CLTs being members of our network. The main reason CLTs give for not joining, or for letting their membership lapse, continues to be a lack of funds.

We maintained a good level of engagement with our members this year, with two-thirds attending at least one event. In Q3, we also changed the way we calculated the KPI to look at engagement over a rolling 12-month period, rather than the financial year to date. We also had many members engage with our campaigns, and contact us via our enquiry line, activities that we still intend to track in our KPI in the future.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Our new online membership forum discussion space

We developed and launched a new online membership platform in November. This provides online discussion spaces for peer exchange for CLTs and enablers, and online versions of our handbooks and wider resources. So we have been delighted to see 204 people from 120 CLTs and enabling organisations sign up, with daily conversations covering finance, planning, operations, governance, lobbying and more. As well as facilitating much more peer exchange, it has really enriched the involvement of our members in our campaigns.

Online events this year included peer discussions and planning for our pre- and post-election lobbying campaigns, the Law Commission’s work on reforming co-operative law, year-end accounts and regulatory requirements, and negotiating section 106 agreements. We continued to run training sessions (this is an additional charge on top of membership) for CLT directors on good governance and operations, and good community engagement. In all, 27 people from 19 CLTs attended a training course.

We also held our AGM in November, with 71 attendees for a shorter online event. Alongside the business items and a discussion about our plans for the year ahead, we facilitated lively peer learning sessions on community engagement, industry partnerships, and CLTs as part of large private sector developments.

Through our income-generating incorporation services, we helped to incorporate 13 new CLTs, handling the registration process with the FCA and supporting them to get their basic governance and operations in place. We provided seven of them with enhanced pre-incorporation support and one with a further post-incorporation support session. We also gave health-checks to three CLTs, looking in detail at where they could make improvements to their governance and operations.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

OBJECTIVE 4: To campaign for a more supportive local, regional and national policy environment

Outcome

There is a more supportive national, regional and local policy and funding environment for CLTs:

More appropriate targeted and useful finance is developed by government in England and in Wales
Regional and local policy supports the provision of public land and finance for CLTs

Key Performance Indicators

Key	Performance Indicators
#	KPI	Target	Baseline	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
1	% of pipeline with public revenue funding	100%	16%	16%	16%	13%	14%
2	% of pipeline with public capital funding	100%	94%	95%	94%	96%	96%
3	% of local or combined authorities that have a supportive policy e.g. in their local plan	50%	49%	49%	49%	49%	49%
4	Number of public sites sold or leased to CLTs	60	53	52	55	52	52

RAG Rating: Amber

Key achievements and moments

National policy wins to protect CLT affordable homes, smooth the planning process, and finance community-led development

This year has been busy with a General Election and a new UK government. We began in the spring by influencing the main political parties and think tanks in support of our manifesto, published in February 2024 (the previous financial year). When the election was called in June, we sprang into action, mobilising CLTs to lobby 69 Parliamentary candidates. After the election, we wrote to ministers and were offered a meeting with the housing minister within weeks, which was later postponed to October 2024 and which was very positive.

We also supported and coordinated 93 of our members to lobby 131 MPs from October to March, spanning all parts of England and Wales and all the main parties. Where MPs showed a particular interest, our CEO attended meetings, and we have identified a number of new champions for CLTs among the many new MPs in this Parliament.

Over the second half of the period, we worked intensively with our members, other national and local bodies in the community and housing ecosystems, and with officials to develop detailed policy proposals and the evidence base behind them, focused on the government’s agendas

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

around community ownership, the long term housing plan, and land use reform. We brought much of this together into a joint submission to the Spending Review with the Confederation of Co-operative Housing (CCH) and the UK Cohousing Network (UKCN), and sent a letter of endorsements from Co-ops UK, Shelter, TCPA, CPRE, NaCSBA, Locality and the Nationwide Foundation.

We gave evidence to a London Assembly committee inquiry into community led housing, and supported officers to shape the thinking and findings on the subsequent report. We encouraged our members in London to submit evidence.

Policy Lab in partnership with the UK Cohousing Network and support from the Nationwide Foundation

With an additional grant from the Nationwide Foundation, we also collaborated with the UK Cohousing Network on a new ‘policy lab’ concept. The housing minister had asked how community-led housing could best be incorporated into new towns. So we worked with the service designers behind the CLH Growth Lab, adapting the tools to codesign an answer to this question with a wide range of public, private and community-sector stakeholders working across planning, design, development, policy and on-the-ground community work. The final reports have been well received by officials, members of the New Towns Taskforce, and other practitioners and researchers also working on influencing the new towns programme.

Despite all this positive work, most CLTs continued to struggle without any public revenue funding for projects over the past year – only those in Wales and London were able to access grants for pre-development costs such as exploring the feasibility of sites and developing planning applications. Capital funding is much more widely available, and most CLTs aim to develop affordable housing tenures and other assets that match with public funding criteria.

Our campaigning did contribute to some significant successes:

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received royal assent in May 2024, enabling CLTs to protect homes from leasehold enfranchisement and exempting CLTs from the ban on new leasehold houses.
The revised National Planning Policy Framework for England was published in December 2024 with some enhancements to hugely important community led development policies we first secured the previous year. These included giving local planning authorities the discretion to widen the application of ‘community-led exception sites’ beyond small schemes of less than 1 hectare in size.
The new £1.5bn Plan for Neighbourhoods programme explicitly identified CLTs developing housing as a “pre-approved intervention” for Neighbourhood Boards.
The government released £20m of investment capital into Resonance’s Community Developers Fund in March 2025. While Resonance can take most credit for negotiating this, our network has created a lot of backbench Parliamentary pressure and direct pressure from us on ministers and officials, which led to the announcement of the money in April 2024 and then finally its release 11 months later.

Throughout the year, we have also spoken to numerous local and combined authorities, MPs, political advisers and government officials, making the case for policy changes to support CLTs.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

OBJECTIVE 5: To develop the Community Land Trust Network as a sustainable organisation

Outcome

A sustainable membership network and charity.

Key Performance Indicators

#	KPI	Target	Baseli ne	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
18	% of unrestricted income secured for the current fnancial year	100%	103%	89%	86%	102%	108%
19	% of unrestricted income secured over a 3 year period	66%	74%	49%	63%	63%	65%
20	% completeness of priority 1 & 2 CLT data	100% / 50%	78% 48%	78% 50%	78% 50%	84% 55%	84% 55%

RAG Rating: Green

Key achievements and moments

Unrestricted balance is above our reserves target, continuing our track record of running a financially sustainable membership network
Members contributed 46% of unrestricted income, reducing reliance on grants for our core work and making us truly powered by members

Our financial performance across the year was strong, and we finished the year above target reserves for our unrestricted funds. We deliberately cut costs and focused on non-grant income generation in the latter half of the year in view of the significant uncertainty over the three-year period, and have finished the year with a larger surplus than we would normally aim for in order to hedge against the risk of one or two core funders not renewing grants in 2025/26.

On unrestricted income, our membership income was strong, growing year-on-year in cash terms. We did some work with our board looking back over performance in the past five years and found that in real terms (adjusting for inflation) membership income has flatlined, which reflects the lack of financing for CLTs to form, make progress and pay our membership fees. We met or surpassed our targets for member training, CLT incorporation and consultancy. Set against this, our conference (mentioned above) made a loss, with income from ticket sales and sponsorship lower than we had hoped for. The balance was funded by the designated fund for events, set up by trustees for this purpose.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

The team has also worked a lot with our board on future finances. We have developed into a much more resilient charity over the business plan period, growing our non-grant income to around 1/3rd of our turnover, and diversifying the grant funders we work with. But we remain precariously dependent on - and hugely grateful to - two core funders, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation. Core funding with both comes to an end in March 2025, and we are applying for future grants. We have since been successful in securing a 2-year grant renewal from Esmee and a one-year extension from Nationwide Foundation. However, we need to seek a further Core grant from Nationwide from April 26 onwards. We have also submitted or are developing bids to other funders for our core work, and for project work on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in CLTs, and CLTs for farming and nature.

Our Membership and Data Officer continued to lead work with the team to improve the accuracy of our dataset on CLTs and their projects. This data underpins much of our other work – helping us to understand the ambitions and projects communities pursue through CLTs, the barriers they are facing and the extent to which they are able to make progress, future financing needs, the impact of interventions such as access to a technical enabling service, and so on.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

REFLECTIONS ON THE YEAR

FACTORS AFFECTING OUR WORK

External context

The housing market downturn continued inflationary pressures, and political turbulence over the year made for a difficult environment for CLTs and for our network. But our network showed the resilience of communities and their determination to succeed.

In this environment, CLTs, like housing associations, councils and private developers, found projects were no longer viable, and those CLTs seeking industry partners found them less interested. Housing associations in particular have diverted focus from new development towards issues with their existing stock, making it harder for CLTs to secure partnerships for housing projects, particularly on smaller and rural projects. This also made our engagement with these sectors more difficult, as evidenced - for example - by the high level of interest in our conference among industry people who couldn’t get the budget to attend from their employers.

Public bodies, a significant source of land for urban CLTs in particular, have also become increasingly reluctant to dispose of assets to CLTs at values that make socially valuable projects financially viable. This reflects the growing crisis in local government finance and elsewhere in the public sector. But we have continued to see local authorities in areas where CLTs have most traction develop new policies and funding streams, particularly in the rural South West.

All of this added to the difficulties for our movement at a time when public and social investment was drying up, and the enabling infrastructure was contracting.

That so many CLTs continue to exist and work on their projects and remain part of the network is - we think - a testament to the commitment and resilience of the movement. This is best illustrated in the 108 additional assets developed or bought by CLTs in the past year, in spite of all those challenges.

The General Election in July 2024 had a significant impact on our advocacy work. While we were able to secure some last-minute wins with the outgoing government, we diverted a lot of our capacity to influencing political parties and candidates. We feared that we would take several steps backwards in our relationship with a new government, as it came into office with other priorities. But in part thanks to our advocacy work over the past two years we have, if anything, accelerated our policy work and influence with the new government. We are working to rebuild our presence in the backbenches of the Commons.

Internal context

Our team continued to work flexibly and effectively. We had no changes in personnel over the period, and staff engagement and wellbeing remained a priority for the leadership team. We

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

continue to review and work on internal policies, such as a major refresh of our financial controls policy to not only meet charity law, but to execute best practice in financial management of the charity. Internal governance remains a priority as we aim to walk the talk in good governance which is so important to the success of our CLT members.

Our Chair of Trustees, Pete Duncan, stepped down from the board at our AGM after a temporary one-year stint, and Kym Shaen-Carter was elected in his place. Colin Glen remains Vice Chair. We also recruited three new trustees in the year - Sonia Bassey (L8 Matters CLT), Hilary Knight (Arundel CLT) and Lorraine Hart. We said goodbye to two trustees - Julie Abbey-Taylor (Lavenham CLT) and Paul Kelly (Crosby and Waterloo CLT).

Our Chair of Trustees continued to discuss how to wind up the Community Led Homes partnership with the Confederation of Co-operative Housing (which left the partnership at the start of the year), Locality and the UK Cohousing Network, including what to do with the jointly owned limited company which owns shared intellectual property. Meanwhile, we continued to develop a highly productive partnership with the UK Cohousing Network on the CLH Growth Lab, and with both UKCN and CCH in our discussions with the government about the long-term plan for housing and scaling community-led housing. We have also further developed our working relationship with Shared Assets.

RISKS

In the short term (the next year), the most significant risk is to the charity’s financial sustainability. Since the year end we have secured a two-year Core fund from the Esmee Fairburn foundation and a one year extension from the Nationwide Foundation. However, should we not be successful in renewing the Core funding from the Nationwide Foundation which ends in March 2026, the board will initiate a restructure in Spring 2026.

The charity maintains a business model and staffing structure that aims to ensure a self-sustaining core network, with proactive work on market development, awareness raising and policy advocacy dependent on grant funding and corporate partnerships. As noted above, we are currently able to sustain about half of our core work without grants, a huge achievement for the movement, and one we want to build on in future years.

The other major risks identified by our board are to do with the external context, and have not changed since the last year. They are:

The challenges for enabler hubs in developing scalable models that are replicable in a defined market context, and finding financing models to sustain and develop their expertise, meaning that CLTs struggle to deliver projects or fail as organisations.
Lack of revenue funding for CLT projects, delaying project progress and demanding a greater resilience and resourcefulness in communities.
Lack of supportive project partners, particularly housing associations and private developers, leading CLT projects to take longer, cost more or be shelved.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Our mitigations for these risks are to continue pursuing our business plan. As this ends in March 2026, we are also going to develop a new business plan this year.

THE NEXT YEAR

Our plans for the next year reflect the final year of 2023-26 business plan. Our five priorities are:

Fundraising/restructuring - closing the deficit in 2025/26 and putting ourselves on a more sustainable footing for the following few years.
Advocacy - landing our asks in the UK Spending Review and long term housing strategy, and following through to ensure concrete steps are taken particularly in reforms to planning policy and further leasehold reforms. We will also be running a campaign with our members in Wales focused on the Senedd elections in 2026, building on and adapting our General Election manifesto from 2024.
Growth programme - seeking funding to continue to develop and expand this programme, and in particular to maintain momentum with the five teams that have been through initial six-month sprints. We are beginning to get a clearer sense of where we see the strongest growth opportunities for the movement, and want to double down on these. We also want to integrate the growth lab work with our vanguard networks research, creating effective communities of practice around those strong models to support a multi-stakeholder approach (e.g. council and housing association officers working with CLT enablers on rural CLT-housing association partnerships).
Membership service - continuing to grow member engagement and uptake of webinars, deep dives, training and other services, so that the CLTs are more robust and able to achieve their objectives. We also want to lift the % of CLTs that are members up to closer to our aspirational target of 75%.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

FINANCIAL REVIEW

OVERVIEW

The charity had an income of 459,036, and expenditure of £480,746. With funds brought forward of £509,363, the charity ended the year with a total balance of £487,653.

Income

The principal source of income was grant funding with a total of £344,093. Other income from charitable activities was gained from membership fees, member/CLT services, delegate fees from the conference, sponsorship and a consultancy service.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Expenditure

The resources were spent on the following activities (which includes staff time):

Events run for CLT groups and stakeholders
Resources and publications for CLT groups
Research into CLT groups and their projects for policy makers and funders
Advocacy on behalf of the CLT movement (staff time)

The activities all support the principal aim of enhancing the quality and work of CLTs, with a particular focus on relieving financial hardship by supporting the provision of affordable housing.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

We ran a major conference in 2024 with significant expenditure. To further our aims and the benefits of membership, this event was free to members. We modelled the likely income streams on the previous conference in 2017; however we had a lack of take up of tickets from

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

paid delegates and did not meet our sponsorship targets, making a loss on the event. This was covered by our designated fund which has been set aside to underwrite a national conference. Therefore it has not negatively impacted our reserves.

In recent years inflation has raised the costs of running events, staff and trustee travel, and the cost of salaries, and associated costs. CLTN continues to be a virtual organisation with no physical office, reducing the running costs of the charity significantly, thereby reducing the fundraising burden. To counter negative effects of remote working, we have invested in online collaboration tools and still meet in person 4 times a year for operational planning. Covid-19 led to the moving of many of our events online including our AGM which we have continued. This has positively affected the attendance and reduced the cost of staging them, increasing value for money.

RISK

The charity maintains a risk register which is reviewed quarterly by the trustees. Of the five financial risks that have been identified, Trustees have not rated any of the financial risks a ‘red’, and have rated one as ‘amber’ - Failure to secure income, including targets for revenue income, required to balance the budget for the current and future financial years . We have secured core funding until the end of March 2026. After this time we have a fundraising need of 30% of our Core budget. We are actively seeking opportunities for Core funding, submitting funding bids during 2025 and will know the outcome ahead of March 2026.

In recent years Inflation has and will affect the financial performance of the charity, this has been mitigated by our biggest core funders awarding an additional cost-of-living uplift. The most significant costs for the charity are the staff and contractors/project partners and this year on our major conference event. Both our salaries and some fees for external expertise rose this year in line with the cost of living.

UNRESTRICTED INCOME

The Community Land Trust Network ended 2024/25 with a net unrestricted deficit for the year of £22,063, principally because of the spending down of the designated fund for the conference.

Taking into account the reserves brought forward from 2023/24, the Community Land Trust Network ended 2024/25 with total unrestricted funds of £472,930.

Of these unrestricted funds, £157,832 has been designated by the trustees for specific purposes (designated funds) and £315,098 in general reserves.

The board of trustees initially signed off a budget for 25/26 with a significant overspend, to be met with reserves, however after successful fundraising we have now closed the gap and the budget is forecast to end the year with a small surplus of £10,900 which is 3% of expenditure.

RESTRICTED INCOME

The Nationwide Foundation awarded a grant of £78,000 to fund staff time on our core activities of awareness raising, advocacy and member support. The funder requested that this appear in our accounts as a restricted fund. This year they granted an award extension to fund preparation and participation in a government round table on Community Led Housing.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

The Cohesive Communities Fund is being used to fund honorariums to allow our new CLT ambassadors to travel and miss days of work in order to promote CLTs at speaking events, bringing a wider range of voices to the debate.

The Ofwat-funded Water Smart Communities Programme explores the frameworks and assets required to create integrated water management options in the housing industry, and to develop demonstrator pilots to evaluate this approach. CLTN is collaborating in workstreams developing blueprints around the concepts of water asset stewardship, identifying physical assets to improve water sustainability, and community perception around the value of water. In the next phase CLTN will be partnering with United Utilities to identify CLT's in the North West to act as demonstrator pilots until the programme closure and evaluation in 2025/26.

Laudes Large Sites Research Project, funded by the Laudes Foundation aimed to understand lessons from existing attempts to introduce Community Land Trusts (or similar structures) in large developer-led housing projects in England, to consider assets beyond housing such as open space and community amenities, and to develop one or more blueprints for what this might look like as mainstream practice and how it could be facilitated. The project finished this year with a balance of zero.

Farming the Future, Exploring Collaboration was a scoping research project to investigate how the community land trust model can be used to steward agricultural land in partnership with Shared Assets. After a successful concluding workshop, the project concluded in the financial year with a balance of nil.

Following on from our Growth Lab Phase 2 project last year, we continued the Growth Programme last year. This year the Growth Lab Phase 3 has been funded by the Nationwide Foundation. The Growth Programme is a service design and action research programme exploring the potential to scale up and replicate community led housing models in England and Wales. It is part of the ambition in the current business strategy, to develop and roll out patterns, products and services to deliver CLT's at scale nationally. Phase 3 was running our product and service design programme in partnership with UK Cohousing with two teams focused on land disposals in Liverpool and on mutual home ownership. The project was completed in April 25, with a small overspend which was covered by general funds.

New Towns Research Project (funded by Nationwide) - Research and action learning to investigate the role Community Land Trusts can play in the governance and stewardship of the proposed New Towns. The project concluded in April 25 with a balance of nil.

RESERVES POLICY

The Trustees agreed a reserves policy in January 2020, updated in January 2021, March 2022 and January 2023, January 2024 and January 2025 considering the following factors:

The organisation’s risk register
The nature of our funds, and prospects for future income streams
Contractual obligations to staff in terms of parental rights, sickness pay and redundancy provisions;
The organisation’s obligation to maintain a safe and clean working environment;
The organisation’s obligation to fund negative cash balances of restricted projects;

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

That certain equipment is essential for the organisation’s work.

For 2024/25 the Trustees continued to plan for a minimum reserve level of £80,000 and a target reserve level of £285,000. Amounts above this level are moved into designated funds to spend on specific charitable purposes.

RESERVES AS AT 31 MARCH 2025

The total funds that the charity holds is £487,653, of which £14,723 are restricted, £157,832 have been designated and £2,111 in fixed assets, leaving £312,987 in free reserves. This is £27,987 over our target reserves level.

The Trustees have designated three funds, these are:

1 - Future website build	Set aside for a rebuild assumed in 2026-27	£35,000
2 - CLH ecosystem work	To feed into further phases of the Growth Lab Programme which explores patterns and processes that enable community led housing.	£80,000
3 - CLT events	To part fund a conference in 2024 and organising events for CLT members to network, visit successful projects and meet potential project partners, over 2022-25.	£42,832

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES’ RESPONSIBILITIES

The trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards including Financial Reporting Standard 102: The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

The law applicable to charities in England & Wales requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the income and expenditure of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
make judgments and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.

The trustees are responsible for keeping sufficient accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the constitution. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Community Land Trust Network Trustee Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF NATIONAL CLT NETWORK CIO

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of National CLT Network CIO (the Charity) for the year ended 31 March 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity trustees of the Charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

I report in respect of my examination of the Charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

Since the Charity’s gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which is one of the listed bodies.

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the Charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records; or
the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view' which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

J Kingston BSc., FCA Burton Sweet Chartered Accountants The Clock Tower 5 Farleigh Court Old Weston Road Flax Bourton Bristol BS48 1UR

Dec 16 2025 Date: …………………………

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

Unrestricted Funds £ 114,263 107,176 6,500	Restricted Funds £ 231,097 - -	Total Funds 2025 £ 345,360 107,176 6,500	Total Funds 2024 £ 279,350 74,802 12,493
227,939	231,097	459,036	366,645
250,002	230,744	480,746	365,337
250,002	230,744	480,746	365,337
(22,063) (78)	353 78	(21,710) -	1,308 -
(22,141) 495,071	431 14,292	(21,710) 509,363	1,308 508,055
472,930	14,723	487,653	509,363

The Charity has no recognised gains or losses other than the results for the year as set out above.

All of the activities of the charity are classed as continuing.

The notes on pages 32 to 42 form part of these financial statements See note 11 for fund-accounting comparative figures

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO BALANCE SHEET

AS AT 31 MARCH 2025

		2025	2024
	Note	£	£
Fixed assets
Tangible assets	12	2,111	2,774
		2,111	2,774
Current assets
Debtors	13	55,121	80,188
Cash at bank and in hand		464,643	463,369
		519,764	543,557
Liabilities
Creditors : amounts falling
due within one year	14	(34,222)	(36,968)
Net current assets		485,542	506,589
Total assets less current liabilities		487,653	509,363
Net assets		487,653	509,363
Funds
Unrestricted funds	16	472,930	495,071
Restricted funds	16	14,723	14,292
Total funds		487,653	509,363

Dec 16 2025

These financial statements were approved by the Trustees on…............................................. and are signed on their behalf by:

Kym Shaen-Carter Chair of Trustees

The notes on pages 32 to 42 form part of these financial statements

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

1 General information

The charity is a charitable incorporated organisation, a registered charity in England & Wales. The address of the registered office is 34-35 Butcher Row, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. SY1 1UW.

2 Statement of compliance

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the historical cost convention (except where otherwise stated in the accounting policy note) and in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) issued in October 2019, and the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), and the Charities Act 2011.

The accounts (financial statements) have been prepared to give a ‘true and fair’ view and have departed from the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 only to the extent required to provide a ‘true and fair view’. This departure has involved following Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) issued in October 2019 rather than the Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice effective from 1 April 2005 which has since been withdrawn.

National Community Land Trust Network meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy note.

3 Accounting policies

Currency

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the entity.

Going concern

The Trustees have given considerable thought to the impact that uncertainty around core funding may have on the charity as a going concern in 2025 and beyond. They have put in place a strategy to secure new or additional core funding to support the charity’s activities in the longer-term. Two designated funds can be used to continue strategically important project work in the absence of grant funding. Our reserves policy takes account of the uncertainty in core funding, and the risk of such a substantial amount of core funding coming from two foundations.

Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the trustees to further any of the charity’s purposes.

Designated funds are unrestricted funds earmarked by the trustees for particular future project or commitment.

Restricted funds are subjected to restrictions on their expenditure declared by the donor or through the terms of an appeal, and fall into one of two sub-classes: restricted income funds or endowment funds.

Key judgments and estimates

Key judgments and estimates made by trustees in implementing the accounting policies are significantly around the recognition of grant income and grant expenditure, whether accrued or deferred or held within funds are the year end. The wording of the grant agreements and the direction of the SORP are used as guidance.

Income

All income is included in the Statement of Financial Activities when entitlement has passed to the charity; it is probable that the economic benefits associated with the transaction will flow to the charity and the amount can be reliably measured. The following specific policies are applied to particular categories of income:

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

3 Accounting policies (continued)

Income from donations or government or other grants (whether for capital or revenue) is recognised when there is evidence of entitlement to the gift, receipt is probable and its amount can be measured reliably, and any performance conditions have been met.

Income from contracts for the supply of services is recognised with the delivery of the contracted service. This is classified as unrestricted funds unless there is a contractual requirement for it to be spent on a particular purpose and returned if unspent, in which case it may be regarded as restricted.

Expenditure

Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis as a liability is incurred. Expenditure includes any VAT which cannot be fully recovered, and is classified under headings of the statement of financial activities to which it relates:

Expenditure on raising funds includes the costs of all fundraising activities, events, non-charitable trading activities, and the sale of donated goods.

Expenditure on charitable activities includes all costs incurred by a charity in undertaking activities that further its charitable aims for the benefit of its beneficiaries, including those support costs and costs relating to the governance of the charity apportioned to charitable activities.

Other expenditure includes all expenditure that is neither related to raising funds for the charity nor part of its expenditure on charitable activities.

All costs are allocated to expenditure categories reflecting the use of the resource. Direct costs attributable to a single activity are allocated directly to that activity. Shared costs are apportioned between the activities they contribute to on a reasonable, justifiable and consistent basis.

Tangible assets

Tangible assets costing over £400 are capitalised. They are initially recorded at cost, and subsequently stated at cost less any accumulated depreciation and impairment losses.

Depreciation

Depreciation is calculated so as to write off the cost or valuation of an asset, less its residual value, over the useful economic life of that asset as follows:

IT & Office equipment - 33% reducing balance

Pension costs and other post-retirement benefits

The Charity contributes to defined contribution pension schemes. Contributions payable to the charity's pension schemes are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities in the period to which they relate.

Debtors

Debtors are measured at their recoverable amounts at the balance sheet date.

Cash

Cash held by the charity is included at the amount actually held and counted at the year end. Bank balances, whether in credit or overdrawn, are shown at the amounts properly reconciled to the bank statements.

Creditors

A creditor and provision are recognised when there is a legal or constructive obligation as a result of a past event and it is probable that an outflow of economic benefits will be required to settle the obligation.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

4 Income from: Grants and donations

Income from: Grants and donations
Donations Grants received	Unrestricted Funds £ 1,267 112,996	Restricted Funds £ - 231,097	Total Funds 2025 £ 1,267 344,093
	114,263	231,097	345,360

During the prior year, the charity received a restricted grant of £10,000 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The charity did not receive any grants from government in the current year.

Prior year comparatives

Grants received	Unrestricted Funds £ 104,500	Restricted Funds £ 174,850	Total Funds 2024 £ 279,350
	104,500	174,850	279,350

5 Income from: Charitable activities

Unrestricted Funds £ 11,037 75,049 11,976 9,114	Restricted Funds £ - - - -	Total Funds 2025 £ 11,037 75,049 11,976 9,114
107,176	-	107,176
Unrestricted Funds £ 800 67,917 6,085	Restricted Funds £ - - -	Total Funds 2024 £ 800 67,917 6,085
74,802	-	74,802

An analysis of restricted income is set out in note 15.

Income is recognised as charitable activity income when it is received in exchange for a level of service to be performed. All other grants are included within grants receivable.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

6 Expenditure on: Charitable activities

Unrestricted Funds £ - 77 18,270 113,557 7,395 59,492 575 9,000 9,418	Restricted Funds £ - 77,295 - 144,122 - 4,281 - - 2,730	Total Funds 2025 £ 77,372 18,270 257,679 7,395 63,773 575 9,000 12,148
217,784 9,871 1,039 808 6,576 872 5,356 2,695	228,428 54 - - - 636 1,626 -	446,212 9,925 1,039 808 6,576 1,508 6,982 2,695
27,217 1,401 2,460 1,140	2,316 - - -	29,533 1,401 2,460 1,140
5,001	-	5,001
250,002	230,744	480,746
	Total Funds 2025 £ - -	Total Funds 2024 £ 10,000 10,000
	-	20,000

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

6 Expenditure on: Charitable Activities (continued)

Unrestricted Funds £ - - 17,400 107,377 4,157 730 1,171 3,600 5,524	Restricted Funds £ 20,000 12,450 - 139,677 - 865 - - 16,250	Total Funds 2024 £ 20,000 12,450 17,400 247,054 4,157 1,595 1,171 3,600 21,774
139,959 9,976 1,366 7,199 3,015 4,998 2,722	189,242 - - - - 1,498 -	329,201 9,976 1,366 7,199 3,015 6,496 2,722
29,276 2,302 2,160 900	1,498 - - -	30,774 2,302 2,160 900
5,362	-	5,362
174,597	190,740	365,337

7 Staff costs and numbers

The aggregate payroll costs were: Wages & salaries Subcontract work Social security costs Pension contributions Other employee benefits	2025 £ 218,258 7,395 17,588 14,476 7,357	2024 £ 212,429 4,157 17,174 12,750 4,701
	265,074	251,211

One employee received emoluments of between £60,000 and £69,999 (2024: none).

The average weekly number of employees during the year was 5 (2024: 5)

The trustees consider themselves, along with the Chief Executive and Finance and Operations Manager to be the key management personnel of the charity. Total remuneration and benefits received by key management personnel during the year were £104,891 (2024: £102,830).

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

8 Taxation

The charity is exempt from corporation tax on its charitable activities.

9 Trustee remuneration and expenses

No consultancy fees, remuneration or other benefits from employment with the charity or a related entity were received by the trustees.

Seven (2024: five) trustees were reimbursed £1,233 (2024: £2068) for travel expenses and training costs incurred in the year.

10 Net Income/(expenditure) for the year

This is stated after charging:

		2025	2024
		£	£
Independent examiner's fees	for independent examination	1,140	900
	for accounts preparation	2,460	2,160
Depreciation		1,039	1,366

11 Statement of Financial Activities comparative figures

Unrestricted Funds £ 104,500 74,802 12,493	Restricted Funds £ 174,850 - -	Total Funds 2024 £ 279,350 74,802 12,493
191,795	174,850	366,645
174,597	190,740	365,337
174,597	190,740	365,337
17,198 478,327	(15,890) 29,728	1,308 508,055
495,525	13,838	509,363

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

12 Tangible fixed assets

Cost or valuation At 1 April 2024 Additions Disposals At 31 March 2025 Depreciation At 1 April 2024 Charge for the year Eliminated on disposal At 31 March 2025 Net book value At 31 March 2025 At 31 March 2024 13 Debtors Due in less than one year: Trade debtors Prepayments and accrued income 14 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Trade creditors Social security and other taxes Other creditors Accruals and deferred income Movement in deferred income Balance at start of the year Income released Membership income deferred to the following year Insurance income deferred relating to the following year Grant received relating to the folllowing year Balance at end of the year	IT & office equipment £ 15,687 1,184 (9,407)	Total £ 15,687 1,184 (9,407)
	7,464	7,464
	12,913 1,039 (8,599)	12,913 1,039 (8,599)
	5,353	5,353
	2,111	2,111
	2,774	2,774
	2025 £ 4,407 50,714	2024 £ 58,116 22,072
	55,121	80,188
	2025 £ 16,935 5,248 2,794 9,245	2024 £ 4,036 5,046 2,860 25,026
	34,222	36,968
	2025 £ 23,160 (23,160) 1,594 1,050 3,000	2024 £ 91,235 (82,235) 4,110 1,050 9,000
	5,644	23,160

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

14 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year (continued)

Included within other creditors in 2024 were amounts owed back to grant funders. The movement in the creditor is as follows:

follows:
Balance at start of the year Returned to funder Balance due at the end of the year	2025 £ - -	2024 £ 77,916 (77,916)
	-	-

15 Movement in funds

For the year ended 31 March 2025

1 April 2024 £ - 3,651 - 10,641 - - -	Income £ 78,000 - 58,221 - 8,000 65,000 21,876	Expenditure £ (78,000) (121) (58,824) (10,719) (8,000) (53,420) (21,660)	Transfers 1 March 2025 £ £ - - - 3,530 - (603) 78 - - - - 11,580 - 216	Transfers 1 March 2025 £ £ - - - 3,530 - (603) 78 - - - - 11,580 - 216
14,292	231,097	(230,744)	78	14,723
80,000 75,000 35,000	- 23,476 -	- (57,568) -	- 1,924 -	80,000 42,832 35,000
190,000 305,071	23,476 204,463	(57,568) (192,434)	1,924 (2,002)	157,832 315,098
495,071	227,939	(250,002)	(78)	472,930
509,363	459,036	(480,746)	-	487,653

Restricted funds

The Core Funding (Nationwide Foundation) funds staff time on our core activities working with CLTs and our advocacy work.

The Cohesive Community fund seeks to unlock the skills and capacity within the Community Land Trust (CLT) movement by providing financial and practical support through grants and training.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

15 Movement in funds (continued)

Growth Lab Phase 2 is funded by Laudes Foundation and Nationwide Foundation. It is a service design and action research programme exploring the potential to scale up and replicate community led housing models in England and Wales.It is part of the ambition set out in the State of the Sector Report and in the current business strategy, to develop and roll out patterns, products and services to deliver CLT's at scale nationally. Phase 2 is a co-production model working with three organisations, geographically spread across England, and is due to complete in Jan 2024.

EWSC is a collaboration on a large-scale programme funded by Ofwat to explore the frameworks and assets required to create integrated water management options in the housing industry, and to develop demonstrator pilots to evaluate this approach. CLTN is collaborating in workstreams developing blueprints around the concepts of water asset stewardship, identifying physical assets to improve water sustainability, and community perception around the value of water. In the next phase CLTN will be partnering with United Utilities to identify CLT's in North West to act as demonstrator pilots until the programme closure and evaluation in 2025.

Laudes Large Sites Research Project: To understand lessons from existing attempts to introduce Community Land Trusts (or similar structures) in large developer-led housing projects in England, to consider assets beyond housing such as open space and community amenities, and to develop one or more blueprints for what this might look like as mainstream practice and how it could be facilitated.

Community Housing Fund: The Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities contributed this small grant to part fund a research project to gather data and conduct an outputs evaluation of the Community Housing Fund.

Farming the Future, Exploring Collaboration - A scoping research project to investigate how the community land trust model can be used to steward agricultural land.

Growth Lab Phase 3 (Nationwide Foundation): Running our product and service design programme in partnership with UK Cohousing with two teams focused on land disposals in Liverpool and on mutual home ownership.

New Towns Research Project (Nationwide) - Research and action learning to investigate the role community led housing can play in the governance and stewardship of the proposed New Towns.

Unrestricted Funds

Community Led Housing - funds set aside to finance external associates to run the planned ecosystem review in 2023/24. In future years this will part fund further phases of the Growth Lab Programme to explore CLH ecosystems.

CLT Events fund - To part fund a large national event/conference in 2024 and for smaller events for CLTs to visit successful projects.

New website - funds set aside towards the cost of rebuilding the charity's website.

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

15 Movement in funds (continued)

For the year ended 31 March 2024

1 April 2023 £ - 4,216 25,470 42 - -	Income £ 84,900 - 43,296 21,013 15,641 10,000	Expenditure £ (84,900) (565) (68,766) (21,509) (5,000) (10,000)	Transfers 1 March 2024 £ £ - - - 3,651 - - 454 - - 10,641 - -	Transfers 1 March 2024 £ £ - - - 3,651 - - 454 - - 10,641 - -
29,728	174,850	(190,740)	454	14,292
80,000 75,000 35,000	- - -	- - -	- - -	80,000 75,000 35,000
190,000 288,327	- 191,795	- (174,597)	- (454)	190,000 305,071
478,327	191,795	(174,597)	(454)	495,071
508,055	366,645	(365,337)	-	509,363

16 Analysis of net assets between funds

£ 2,111 - 312,987 157,832 General Funds Designated Funds Unrestricted	£ 2,111 - 312,987 157,832 General Funds Designated Funds Unrestricted	Restricted Funds £ - 14,723	Total £ 2,111 485,542
315,098	157,832	14,723	487,653
2,774 - 302,297 190,000 Unrestricted General Funds Designated Funds		Restricted Funds - 14,292	Total 2,774 506,589
305,071	190,000	14,292	509,363

NATIONAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST NETWORK CIO

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

17 Related party transactions

Mr P Duncan, is a trustee of National Community Land Trust Network and also a director of Communities CAN (North East) Limited, registered company number 11203303. During the prior year, a grant of £10,000 was issued to Communities CAN to develop a model for regenerating high streets. No such grant was issued in the current year. Mr Duncan was not involved in developing the scheme, or preparing the bid for the grant. No amounts were due at either the current, or prior, year end.

There are no further transactions with trustees or other related parties other than those disclosed above as required by the SORP elsewhere in the financial statements.

Audit Trail

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Title	National CLT - Accounts 2025
File Name	Financial statements 2025 (final).pdf
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