Our story
The Todmorden Learning Centre and Community Hub (TLCCH) is the community group which now runs Tod College. The building, formerly Todmorden Community College, was transferred to the community benefit society from Calderdale Council in the Spring of 2021.
The transfer came after five years of campaigning and fundraising by the community to save the building from being bulldozed. The aim of the centre is to create a community space for the benefit of the people of Todmorden. It now offers a rapidly growing range of provision for local people and community groups including opportunities for learning, sports facilities, office, studio, and workshop spaces.
TLCCH aims to provide local young people with the learning and skills they need for jobs in the new green economy. The college has successfully secured National Lottery funds to set up a Climate Challenge College (CCC) as a faculty within Tod College. The CCC is delivering skills training in natural building, agro-ecology and renewable energy systems.
Our advice
The people in our town thought it was a shameful waste for a useful community building to face demolition to make way for another supermarket car park. They got together and campaigned for 5 years until the local authority finally gave the building to them as an asset transfer.
During that time there were tensions between those who had a vision of a centre of climate education and those who felt the building should have a more generic focus. The two strands have now been pulled together and strong links made between the need for climate change mitigation and social justice. Neither of these issues can be tackled in isolation - they are intertwined. Our town regularly suffers flooding and it is always those who can least afford it who lose most.
Our message is: Don't give up. Whatever you are working towards or campaigning for may still be a long way away but you have to keep going. The climate crisis can't just be ignored.
Our Changeprint
Our Changeprint can be measured by the community building that goes on at the hub (a space for meetings, workshops, rehearsals, conferences, children’s clubs, societies and more); increased awareness and action on climate change; and by providing local young people with the learning and skills they need for jobs in the new green economy.
