Sheryl Schiltz joins CDA as part-time consultant
The CDA is thrilled to welcome Sheryl Schiltz as a part-time consultant, bringing with her 42 years of experience in the housing and social housing sector.
Sheryl has delivered over 43,000 homes across her career and has worked at every level of the development process – from initial appraisal through to on-site delivery and post-completion inspections.
Her background includes long-term collaboration with Homes England, including managing large-scale programmes and piloting the original Investment Management System (IMS).
She has worked with housing associations such as L&Q, Raglan, Stonewater, Accord, Clarion, Bromford, HC21, Rooftop, and The Extra Care Charitable Trust. She has been self-employed since 2012, providing consultancy to a wide range of sector clients, covering general needs (Affordable Rent, Social Rent and Shared Ownership) and supported needs (Homeless, Dementia and over 55's).
Sheryl said: “I've been in the affordable housing sector a long time. I can undertake the whole development process from inception to completion, appraisals of a scheme, land acquisition, procurement of and working with the design team, planning and building control colleagues, contractors and developers and other stakeholders. I have vast experience of building contracts, working on site, to handing over a set of keys to residents, and I have also managed the defects period.”
Sheryl’s role is to support appraisals and advise on scheme design and viability.
“I’ve always thought that everyone deserves a decent home. I look at a property and quality is key. When it’s finished, I ask myself, ‘Would I live in this property?’ If it’s no, then it’s not good enough to hand over.
“I’ve been described as a safe pair of hands, and I take that seriously. I don’t want to walk into a home 12 months later and due to a poor specification or limited costs, I see a baby still playing on a concrete floor. That’s not acceptable. I’m here to make sure that what gets delivered is to a decent standard, for the residents who are living in the properties, and for the community, whilst achieving value for money,” she said.
Since she began in April 2025, she has introduced the CDA to ProVal, a financial appraisal tool designed specifically for social housing development, ensuring adherence to industry standards. ProVal evaluates land acquisition costs, building costs, fees, and financial assumptions – ensuring that each proposal meets the long term financial health of their projects and forecast critical financial metrics such as NPV and IRR.
“ProVal is a financial viability tool for decisions to be made by board of whether to proceed (or not) with that scheme,” Sheryl said. “I gather all the information – unit types, acquisition costs, works costs, fees – and build accurate financial assumptions for board approval. I also flag risks such as site-specific costs, contamination, or infrastructure issues.”
She has also implemented SDS Sequel, a project management platform that integrates with ProVal. She has created a ‘master template’ that is specifically made for the CDA’s development model: “The template we’ve built helps the CDA monitor the spend of actual schemes clearly, with confidence and compliance,” she said.
Sheryl has joined the CDA team because she believes in the purpose of the organisation. She said:
“The CDA is a great organisation to work with for housing developments. They’re refurbishing or developing on Church land to provide genuinely affordable homes, and that matters. There’s a lot of underused land and buildings that could be providing homes for people, whilst retaining some of the beautiful features and remaining a place of worship while serving their communities.
“The 5S framework is one I believe in. If somebody’s got a quality home, they will want to stay. This creates a more stable, sustainable community. You raise the standard, and you raise people’s quality of life.”