A MAJOR battle has been won in the fight for permission to convert a barn in upper Wensleydale to a home for a local family.

An application for the work at Cams House, near Hawes, was approved by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority on Tuesday.

The vote, 10-9, came after nearly three hours of debate, which included an hour of discussion to move the item from the private part of the meeting to the public session.

The application may now be called in for determination by the secretary of state but, if not, a decision notice will be issued and the development can go ahead. The barn conversion will provide a home for rent in perpetuity for local builder David Winspear, his partner Sharon Spensley and their three children. The family said they might have to leave the area if the scheme did not go ahead, as they could not afford the high property prices.

An identical application was twice approved last year but was rejected on the advice of the monitoring officer when debated a third time under the authority's referral system.

Decisions taken against officers' recommendations go back to the planning committee to explore the reasons for the decision and build up a water-tight case if the decision is challenged.

Public outrage followed the decision, resulting in moves to widen the list of settlements where such conversions would be permitted.

The current application was approved this summer, against planners' recommendations, and was debated again on Tuesday. Following the vote, monitoring officer Mervyn Wilmington said he would report to the November meeting of the authority to complete his statutory duty.

Under the Local Government and Housing Act, the monitoring officer must prepare a report if he believes action, or proposed action, of the authority or its committees is likely to be unlawful.

Steve Macar, authority chairman, said: "This application is of such importance to the public, yet it continues to trouble this authority.

"The problem we have is that this authority has to act lawfully; the monitoring officer has indicated that this might not be the case. The authority cannot ignore these concerns, in fact it is bound by law to hear his statutory report, debate it and then come to a final decision."

Coun John Blackie, who has led the campaign for approval of the scheme, was delighted.

"There were some very, very measured contributions to the debate, which was calmly and sensibly conducted, and the vote came out in favour of the application for the second time," he said.

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