About

The Great Shelford Village Charity exists to help people in need within the village and surrounding area:

We own and manage 53 almshouse homes in Great Shelford, South Cambridgeshire, where we provide affordable accommodation for families, couples and individuals.
We also own the 6 acres of land adjacent to the almshouses comprising allotments, a community garden, an orchard and parkland, where we have provided footpaths and benches for public use.
Additionally, the Charity provides grants and makes donations in support of local organisations, good causes and villagers in need.

We were formerly known as The Parochial Charities; see “Goodbye, Parochial Charities . . . Hello, Great Shelford Village Charity“.

Our annual report – prepared for the Parish Council’s annual public meeting – may be found here.

Our annual financial report and accounts are published here on the Charity Commission website.

Governance

GSVC Trustee Ltd (company no: 14653486) is the sole corporate trustee of Great Shelford Village Charity (registered charity number: 231486). Its directors – all unpaid – are:

Jaspaul Hill MBE

Chair. Retired Headteacher and Ofsted Inspector.

Jaspaul is a retired primary school headteacher, having worked in schools for 40 years. She moved to Great Shelford in 1992 and her children attended local groups, primary and secondary schools. First hearing about the charity as an allotment holder, Jaspaul joined the board at a very exciting time, in 2020, just as builders were appointed to start work on MM2.

Michael Pooles KC

Deputy Chair. Retired Barrister, Hailsham Chambers.

Michael is a recently retired King's Counsel, specialising in professional negligence and insurance matters, who has been involved in the charity since 2019. He has lived in Shelford and Stapleford for over 30 years, having been brought up in Cottenham. He was previously a school governor for 17 years. He oversaw the constitutional changes to the Charity in recent years and has particular interest in legal issues.

Sarah Kreckler

Company Director, Chartered Surveyor.

Sarah moved to Great Shelford in 2015 and has two children currently in secondary school. She is a Chartered Surveyor with over twenty years experience of all things property related and now works as a Company Director and Asset Manager. She joined GSVC as a Director in 2023, intrigued by the allotments and almshouses on her doorstep. She loves living in Great Shelford and relishes the opportunity to use her qualifications and experience to make a positive contribution to the village.

Richard Mutty

Company Director, Chartered Surveyor.

Richard has lived in the villages of Gt Shelford/Lt Shelford and Stapleford since 1991. He has three grownup children and two grandchildren. Richard has worked in the property industry since 1979 and is a full time director of a property company. This experience provides him with the skills necessary to support the GSVC in all things property related.

Graham Newman

Retired, Chartered Accountant.

Graham and his wife moved to Stapleford nearly 35 years ago and have remained residents of the village. They have two grown up children. Graham worked locally, as an Accountant, for over 40 years before retiring at the end of 2019. Graham wanted to spend some of his available time assisting a local organisation and joining GSVC seemed a good opportunity to do so.

Prof Stefan Scholtes

Professor, University of Cambridge.

Originally from Germany, Stefan and his wife made Stapleford their home in 1997, raising three children. He has served as governor of Stapleford Primary School and now works closely with Granta Medical Practices as Patient Chair of the Board. As a Professor of Health Management at the University of Cambridge, Stefan’s work focuses on improving the delivery of effective health and wellbeing services. He hopes to bring his experience to benefit the community served by the Great Shelford Village Charity.

Dr John Tweedale

Retired, General Practitioner.

John joined the charity at the end of 2024 after retiring as a doctor. He spent 27 years at Shelford Health Centre then 7 years as a GP within Addenbrookes A&E. John grew up on a smallholding in Kent and has always enjoyed gardens and the outdoors. His responsibility is to administer and care for the charity's fields and allotments. John hopes we can have a good balance between letting nature look after itself, whilst allowing good access for all to enjoy the space. He also helps with the general duties of the directors within the charity.

Simon White

Treasurer. Chartered Accountant.

Simon was born and brought up in Dorset before moving to Cambridge in 1998. He started working at Tayabali & White in 2006 and four years later moved to Great Shelford with his family. Their children all went to Shelford school and on to Sawston Village College. Simon joined the charity in 2014, with “only” 32 properties to look after. Being part of the new development and the expansion of the charity’s ability to be of benefit to more individuals and families has been hard work at times but hugely enjoyable.

Samantha Rigby-Coghlan

Board supporter

Samantha took on the role of charity clerk in January 2024. Her background is in project management. Her family have owned the same home in Great Shelford since 2015, moving back to the village in 2023 after living in Denmark and USA. She has a primary school aged child who plays for the local village rugby team keeping the family connected to the village.

History

By the early 18th century the village had three charities sharing the common object of ‘relieving, either generally or individually, persons resident in the Parish of Great Shelford who are in conditions of need, hardship or distress’:

Lettice Martin’s Charity, founded 1562
Town Lands and Town Houses, founded around 1650
John More’s Charity, founded 1705.

19th Century

In 1890, under the auspices of the Charity Commission, these three charities were merged to form The Great Shelford Parochial Charities, owning cottages, smallholdings and allotments which were rented out to villagers of limited means at fair rents.

Records from around the turn of the 19th century show the Charity also made annual disbursements of coal to over 100 villagers and also provided nursing services for the sick. See Fuel poverty – then and now.

20th Century

The workings of the charity remained much the same until the late 1980s when the trustees sold some of the land and cottages so as to release capital for the development of modern, affordable housing.

The new development at More’s Meadow was officially opened by Betty Boothroyd, MP and Speaker of the House of Commons, on 9 March 1996 and comprised:

- 4 semi-detached, 3 bedroom houses
- 24 semi-detached, 2 bedroom bungalows
- 4 semi-detached, 1 bedroom bungalows

All 32 properties were let to villagers of limited means at affordable rents.

Timeline

21st Century

In 2019 the Charity began moving residents’ tenures from rental to almshouse agreements. Almshouse residents are ‘appointees’, not tenants, live in the almshouse under licence, and pay a monthly maintenance contribution (MMC) rather than a rent. There is no right-to-buy or shared equity, meaning that the Charity retains the homes in perpetuity for the benefit of the community. The Charity currently sets its MMC at 50% of the prevailing local market rental rate.

In 2021, the Charity was granted planning permission to build a further 21 almshouse homes at the end of More’s Meadow. The planning consent included the provision of allotments, an orchard, a community garden, parkland, the planting of native trees and hedgerows, and enhanced public access to the surrounding green belt.

The new development brings to 53 the total number of almshouse homes provided by the Charity, providing decent, affordable accommodation for well over 100 people; a broad mix of families, couples and individuals.

As of 2023, the Charity’s almshouse assets are:

- 12 x 3-bedroom homes
- 29 x 2-bedroom homes
- 12 x 1-bedroom homes

Sources and further information:

A P Baggs, S M Keeling and C A F Meekings, ‘Parishes: Great Shelford’, in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 8, ed. A P M Wright (London, 1982), pp. 207-219.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol8/pp207-219 [accessed 29 November 2023].
Edward Harcourt Bustard FRIBA, in Great Shelford Remembered, 1894 – 1994
Helen Harwood, Parochial Charities – Social Housing in Shelford. Unpublished manuscript, June 2015

GSVC Trustee Ltd – a company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales, company number 14653486, whose registered office is at 18 High Street, Great Shelford, Cambridge CB22 5EH – is the sole corporate trustee of The Great Shelford Village Charity. Privacy Policy