Six lines of work

Programmes & initiatives.

We do not run our own services. We give small grants — carefully, locally, four times a year — to people and organisations within twenty miles of Huddersfield Town Hall. Here are the six lines of work that absorb our modest annual outflow of around £35,000.

A wide low view across Greenhead Park towards the Cenotaph on a soft September afternoon, with two figures walking a dog in the distance

A conservator brushing lichen from inscribed names on the Huddersfield Cenotaph drum, autumn light from the west

Programme 1 · Greenhead Park

Memorial Care.

The original duty. The Huddersfield Cenotaph in Greenhead Park, dedicated in May 1924, carries 3,439 names. The stonework needs slow, regular attention: a wash before each Remembrance Sunday, a pointing repair every few years, a full conservation survey every fifteen or so.

Beneficiary: the public who use Greenhead Park; the families and descendants of those named on the Memorial.
Geography: Greenhead Park, Huddersfield.
Typical annual spend: £8,000–£14,000, with conservation-survey years higher.
Supported by: Kirklees Council’s parks team and the Friends of Greenhead Park.

The 2026 Conservation Appeal funds the first full survey since 2009. The conservator’s report will shape our maintenance budget for the next fifteen years.

Programme 2 · Ex-service neighbours

The Listening Fund.

Single hardship grants for veterans and their families across the Huddersfield area. The fund is named for the principle that began it — that the first thing anyone in difficulty needs is to be listened to, before any form is filled in.

Beneficiary: ex-service personnel and their dependants resident within twenty miles of Huddersfield Town Hall.
Geography: Kirklees, with referrals occasionally accepted from Calderdale.
Typical grant size: £100–£500, with a maximum of £750.
Application route: referral from the Royal British Legion (Huddersfield Branch), SSAFA West Yorkshire, Combat Stress, or a serving social worker.

In 2024 the Listening Fund made 23 grants totalling £8,420. We replied within seven days to every single application, including those we could not fund.

A volunteer in a navy fleece embroidered with the trust's name pouring tea for a veteran at a community hall table in Marsden

A hospice garden in Brighouse with a Pennine horizon and a single wheelchair-accessible path winding through autumn planting

Programme 3 · The 20-mile radius

The Convalescent Awards.

An annual round of grants to convalescent homes, hospices, and care institutions located within twenty miles of Huddersfield Town Hall. The Declaration of Trust requires the radius. We have come to know our partners well over decades.

Beneficiaries: Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice, the Welcome Centre, Holme Valley Memorial Hospital, and two convalescent homes in Brighouse and Mirfield.
Geography: within a 20-mile radius of Huddersfield Town Hall, by deed.
Typical grant size: £750–£2,500, agreed in May.
Supported by: the partner organisations themselves, who provide brief end-of-year notes on how the grants were used.

Programme 4 · Necessitous circumstances

The Necessity Grants.

A small fund, replenished each spring, for one-off relief in necessitous circumstances. Used for the things that fall between every other safety net: a school uniform; a single month’s rent arrears; a boiler engineer’s visit; a funeral contribution; a working week’s shopping after a sudden bereavement.

Beneficiaries: households resident in the Huddersfield area.
Geography: Huddersfield and its vicinity.
Typical grant size: £100–£400.
Application route: referral from the Welcome Centre, a Kirklees social worker, a school welfare officer, or a parish minister.

We made nineteen Necessity Grants in 2024, totalling £4,820. Forty-two households in total were supported across all our hardship programmes.

A kitchen table in a small terraced house in Marsden with a stack of envelopes, two tea mugs, and a hand-written grant decision letter from the trust

A nurse arranging a hand-knitted blanket on a wing-back armchair in a quiet day-clinic at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary on Acre Street

Programme 5 · Acre Street, Lindley

The Royal Infirmary Award.

Object I of our Declaration of Trust is the support of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. We honour it with a standing annual grant, agreed in conversation with the hospital’s charity team each November, for projects that fall outside the NHS’s own budget.

Beneficiary: patients, staff, and visitors at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.
Geography: Acre Street, Lindley.
Typical grant size: £3,500–£5,000 per year.
Recent projects: comfort items for the dementia day-clinic, a memorial bench in the courtyard, and a contribution to the chaplaincy garden.

Programme 6 · 11 November & the Sunday nearest

Remembrance Together.

A small budget that allows us to support the practical work behind the town’s civic Remembrance Sunday service: parade stewarding, a portable sound system, accessibility provision, and the chalking-in of weathered names so the wreath-laying procession can pause at each panel.

Beneficiaries: the public who attend the civic service; the parade marshals; the Royal British Legion (Huddersfield Branch).
Geography: the Cenotaph, Greenhead Park.
Typical annual spend: £1,800–£2,400.
Supported by: the Royal British Legion, Kirklees Council, Greenhead Park rangers, and a rotation of about thirty volunteer stewards.

A bugler in a navy greatcoat playing the Last Post at the Huddersfield Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, a crowd of small figures gathered in respectful silence

If your circumstances fit

How to apply for a grant.

Application is by short form and a referral letter from a trusted local partner. We meet to consider applications four times a year. Decisions are usually communicated by post within ten working days of the meeting.

Grant guidance & forms Talk to a trustee