A NATIONAL park planning authority continues to be divided after the chairman said it was striving to retain and attract young people.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority chairman Carl Lis has said the authority is supporting local district councils to keep young people in the national park.

But planning committee member and Upper Dales councillor John Blackie said its latest barn planning application refusals were a "great disappointment".

Officers had warned recent barn schemes failed to meet policies designed to meet the authority’s main purpose of conserving important features of the park.

Mr Lis said: “In the past week the authority has received a fair bit of stick, locally, over decisions to refuse three barn conversions. However, we are approving the vast majority of barn conversion applications – 100 approvals, against eight refusals over the past three years.

"These latest applications were refused because they involved field barns out in the open countryside, away from the road.

"We are continuing to approve new build housing on allocated sites and infill sites within towns and villages."

Cllr Blackie said: "The private advice we were given about the latest planning applications showed we can find sound planning reasons that would enable us to grant all the planning applications without opening the flood gates as a precedent.

"It seems to me that as a planning authority we should be shaping the future of our communities for families, as well as the landscape, but we are in danger of not having any communities in the future."