A FARMER who refused to take down a 12-metre-high barn in the Yorkshire Dales National Park – so large it was supposedly known as ‘the giraffe house’ – has been ordered to pay more than £1,800 in financial penalties by magistrates.

Andrew Avison, of Middlefield Farm, in Melmerby, near Leyburn, pleaded guilty to not complying with an enforcement order issued by the national park authority, which ordered him to either take down the silage barn – said to be one of the tallest farm buildings in the park – or reduce its height to eight metres.

Northallerton Magistrates Court heard that he built the barn to replace one which burned to the ground after a contractors’ tractor exhaust got too close to straw, sending the building up ‘like touchpaper’.

Mark Robinson, for the Yorkshire Dales National Park, said Avison, 41, had been warned while the barn was being built in 2014 that he required planning permission.

But the farmer needed it to store winter feed for his 320-strong dairy herd, and finished the barn before applying for retrospective planning permission, which was denied by the authority, then twice on appeal by the planning inspector.

The YDNPA said such was the barn’s prominence in Coverdale, it became known as the ‘giraffe house’.

However,father-of-three Avison, whose farm is losing tens of thousands of pounds a year due to low milk prices, said the height was necessary for the size of the articulated lorries which now deliver the feedstock.

Avison’s statement, read out in court, also made sensational claims – denied vehemently by the park authority – that ahead of the planning meeting to decide whether retrospective permission should be given, the national park authority’s head of planning had asked for a chat in a private room.

There Avison claimed Richard Graham asked for a ‘contribution to his Christmas fund’ in return for ‘sorting’ planning permission.

Avison claimed he told him he didn’t make ‘deals with the devil’ and he wasn’t about to start, then claimed he informed two councillors outside, John Blackie and Roger Harrison-Topham.

Cllr Blackie, who was at yesterday’s court hearing, said Avison’s allegations were ‘a complete fantasy’ and ‘a pack of lies’.

Mr Robinson declined to apply for an order banning the press reporting the claim, saying the authority had nothing to hide, and ‘vehemently denied’ the allegations, which he said had never been reported before the prosecution was brought against him.