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12
Nov 2021
Flurry of Yorkshire Dales barn conversions raises call to close planning loophole
Developers are exploiting a planning loophole that allows them to convert traditional stone barns in the Yorkshire Dales, a meeting has heard.
Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s audit committee called for the loophole to be closed to ease the national park’s housing crisis.
A policy was introduced six years ago to conserve the area’s historic agricultural buildings. It allows owners to choose whether the barns become homes for locals or holiday lets.
But although the dual policy has brought some barns back into use, the overwhelming majority of permitted conversions have been holiday lets, which could be sold for about £500,000, the meeting heard.
Of the 198 planning consents granted, only 28 per cent have had local occupancy or rural worker restrictions placed on them.
Previous policies had required local occupancy of most barn conversions, the only exception being where it was linked to farm diversification, in which case holiday letting was also permitted.
The meeting heard many locals were being priced out of buying barns, as even derelict ones with planning permission to be converted were now being marketed at between £150,000 and £200,000.
Officers added at £1,500 per square metre, the costs of converting barns were usually higher than new-builds.
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They said barn conversions should be of wider socio-economic benefit to the national park, where there are several ongoing initiatives aiming at attracting younger residents.
Too many holiday lets
The meeting comes ahead of the creation of a new Local Plan for development.
David Ireton, the North Yorkshire County councillor for Upper Craven said he had been a supporter of the dual policy, but had changed his mind.
He said the authority was set to examine whether a principle place of residence requirement should be brought in on the barns, “which would then allow new blood to come into the Dales with children”.
Mr Ireton said:
Swaledale councillor Richard Good said giving approval to a barn conversion that enabled a Swaledale farming family to remain in the Dales had done much good for the authority’s image.
He added:
The authority’s longest-serving member Robert Heseltine said the barns remained an opportunity to “give that indigenous population a chance to have a permanent home”:
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