ADOPTION of restrictions on the sale of new housing in the Yorkshire Dales has been delayed to allow the full implications of a planning inspector's recommendations to be assessed.

The national park authority accepted most of the 150-plus modifications made by the inspector to its review of the local plan.

But the planning committee meeting at Hawes on Wednesday agreed to reconvene the authority's local plan working group to examine in detail the inspector's recommendations and comments on its proposed housing policy.

Officers will produce their comments on the modifications for the working group, to which all authority members will be invited.

The government inspector, William Carlow, who conducted a public inquiry into the proposed new local plan last summer, generally endorsed the principles of its housing policies.

They are aimed at making it easier for local people to acquire homes in the national park, where property prices dramatically outstrip average incomes. Measures include preventing new housing from being bought as second homes or holiday lets.

Mr Carlow agreed that houses built in the national park in future should meet demand from local people and be more affordable. They should be smaller and, therefore, less costly, be located in villages with services and be sold with restricted occupancy.

His report also supported the authority's policies to help create more and better-paid rural jobs and to provide accommodation for workers.

Coun John Blackie, North Yorkshire county councillor for the upper dales, proposed reconvening the working group to examine the inspector's comments and recommendations on housing policy.

After the meeting, he said: "The matters are of such importance to the local community, and so complex, and the inspector, while fully endorsing the principles of our policy, has made both subtle and dramatic modifications to what we are trying to do, that we must fully grasp their implications before making any decision.

"Given the importance and complexity, it is right that we discuss the issue in an informal atmosphere and come back with recommendations to the planning committee."

Any changes to the inspector's recommendations must be advertised and the public consulted before the finalised local plan can be adopted.

The Country Land and Business Association welcomed the proposed policy, but said more must be done to ensure young people remained in the Dales.

Dorothy Fairburn, CLA regional director, said: "Our concern is that not enough new homes will be available to local people at affordable prices. While we welcome the decision as a step in the right direction, there is still a lot more to be done to halt the exodus of young people from the Dales or to create new jobs.

"Our campaign has succeeded in persuading the Government to change its mind about abolishing the planning rule which can allow low-cost houses to be built in exceptional circumstances in villages where development would normally be restricted. Now it is easier for councils to grant planning permission for affordable homes and the national park's decision will hopefully encourage more moves in this direction."

She said there were countless examples in Yorkshire of people who could not afford to live near their work. Rural businesses such as the Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes had to bus in workers and the rural economy suffered from young people leaving the villages.

"The Yorkshire Dales is not a museum," said Miss Fairburn. "It is attractive largely because of the land being farmed and managed. If that is to continue we need profitable farming and a thriving rural economy with more and wider opportunities for job creation."

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