DETAILS of a scheme to help low and middle income families in the Yorkshire Dales to buy their own homes should be published at the beginning of October.

The shared equity housing scheme for Wensleydale and Swaledale would see private investors put in a stake which would increase as property prices rose.

Families who could raise a proportion of the mortgage needed to buy a property could ask the trust to buy the other half of the house.

Dr Peter Annison, chairman of the local strategic partnership, which is carrying out a feasibility study into the idea, told Richmondshire district councillors that some interest had already been shown in the scheme.

He hoped an interim report would be published by early October and the council's community committee asked officers to prepare a report on how the authority could become involved. They are also to investigate whether they would be allowed to use cash from the sale of council houses to invest in the scheme.

Councillors also hoped that money from the abolition of council tax discount on second homes could be channelled into the scheme.

Dr Annison told the committee on Tuesday that the scheme would fit alongside other measures to help people afford homes in the dales, where the average house price is over £200,000 and the average income two-thirds of the national average.

"This is not only a problem at the bottom end of the income ladder, it is eating its way up into the middle incomes," he said. Askrigg school had problems recruiting a head teacher because of the price of property in the area.

He gave an example of how the scheme could help a family wishing to buy a home on the market at £150,000. They could perhaps raise a mortgage of £75,000 and the trust would buy the other half of the house.

If the family's finances improved in the future, they could buy more of the equity from the trust. When the house was sold, the family and the trust would keep their relevant shares.

Dr Annison said the organisation of the scheme would be complex and many details had to be ironed out.

The partnership also had to gauge the level of interest from potential investors and buyers and an underwriting banker was needed.

An investment document would have to be drawn up and this was likely to cost a six figure sum, said Dr Annison. He hoped the Housing Corporation could be persuaded to fund that, with a view to expanding the idea to other parts of the country.

Coun John Blackie, council leader, said many low and middle income families wanted their own homes in the dales but were unable to afford them.

A survey of Ingleton revealed 125 potential buyers, most of whom could afford £85,000, but a two-bedroomed terraced house in the area cost £130,000 to £140,000.