YOUNG families will be at the centre of a new drive to save communities in the Yorkshire Dales after figures showed a 50 per cent decrease in school rolls over the last 15 years.

Richmondshire District Council has vowed to ‘think outside the box’ to retain families in the Upper Dales areas amid fears that the lack of young people has reached crisis point.

A steady decline in school roll figures shows the extent of the problem, with a 50 per cent decrease in the last 15 years.

At an Upper Dales Area Committee meeting in West Burton, leader of Richmondshire District Council Councillor John Blackie said the authority must work with other organisations to do things differently in an attempt to resurrect deeply rural communities.

Cllr Blackie said the authority will be working with North Yorkshire County Council and Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, among other organisations, to try to encourage young people to stay.

He said: “Families are getting smaller which contributes to the falling school roll numbers, but other young people are leaving because they are facing insurmountable barriers in being able to afford to live here.”

Cllr Blackie said it was worrying that the supply of affordable housing had dried up – and despite the council employing a rural housing enabler, no new affordable homes have been made available in the last two years.

He said: “We want to look at schemes to allow communities to provide their own housing, and find alternative ways to collecting surveys to find out if there is housing need because people are fed up of filling them in for nothing to come of it.

“We are also going to ask people who have left why they left and what could have made them stay with us.”

The National Park authority has agreed to consider lowering its specifications on building material quality so projects could be carried out at lower cost.

The district council will also approach banks about lowering the 50 per cent deposit required for many Dales homes.

Cllr Blackie said another factor in young people leaving was the lack of high quality jobs available – something he hoped could be remedied by the introduction of superfast broadband in more Dales communities.

He said: “Superfast broadband is a real leveller between urban and rural environments.

“We will try to encourage IT entrepreneurs because they bring prosperity and quality jobs.”