FAMILIES may be asked to contribute to a fund to be used to help home-buyers get on the property ladder.

People who live in the Yorkshire Dales National Park are finding themselves priced out of the property market.

Affordable properties have become so scarce that the national park authority is considering policies which will prevent people buying properties which they intend to use as holiday homes.

Planners have also agreed to consider relaxing rules which have prevented many people from converting barns and outbuildings into homes.

When the authority meets on Tuesday, members will be asked to consider a community housing investment trust, which would invite residents to contribute to a central fund which would then be used to help people who would otherwise be unable to afford a house.

Those who received the money would then repay it if they later sold the property.

The Upper Wensleydale Partnership has asked the national park authority to contribute £2,500 towards a feasibility study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

In a report prepared for next week's meeting, strategic planning officer Peter Stockton is recommending that members adopt the proposal.

"Local households are likely to welcome such a scheme since it would support their aspirations to own their own home and help them on to the property ladder," the report says.

"As the investment would be tied to the local household - probably through a mortgage subsidy - rather than the property, there would be no need for complicated restrictive covenants governing occupancy.

"On resale, the trust's investment would be returned - with profits - back into the pot, for use by other households.

"The trust would not then be burdened with managing a stock of housing that might not meet its actual requirements."

If the feasibility study is approved next week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will be asked to consider how many people are likely to need help, how much money they would need, how many people would be willing to contribute to the fund and, if there are other sources of money "which could be added to the equation".