PLANNING policy should be relaxed in areas of the Yorkshire Dales where surveys show clear housing need, councillors have urged.

Richmondshire District Council agreed to press the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority to consider amending its policies, during a review of the local plan, to help local people secure homes.

The district backed proposals by its leader, Coun John Blackie, to ask the park to broaden the list of settlements where barn conversions for local housing were allowed.

The park will also be urged to look at allowing barn conversions for local housing where policy currently permits alterations only to form holiday cottages under farm diversification.

These amendments would refer only to parishes and wards where studies demonstrated definite need for housing for local people.

Coun Blackie, who is also a member of the national park authority, brought the motion in the aftermath of anger over the Cams Houses planning application. The national park authority twice approved conversion of a barn above Hawes to a home for a local family but, on the advice of officers, rejected the scheme on policy grounds.

Officers said approving the application would undermine the existing policy which restricts barn conversions and set a precedent for other less-desirable applications.

The decision caused a storm of protest in the upper Dales. Many residents, some of whom signed a petition presented to the national park authority, felt the authority should have exercised flexibility to help a local family.

Coun Blackie told the district council meeting on Tuesday: "We are the housing authority and we have an opportunity to input into the national park draft local plan, which is under review at the moment."

Coun Yvonne Peacock said the policy amendments would help stem the flow of young families from the Dales, where property prices were prohibitive.

Relations between the district council and the national park authority were strained recently in the wake of the national park's decision to refuse permission for the Cams Houses barn conversion.

The park authority's chief executive accused Coun Blackie of playing politics over the issue and further suggested that the district council's record on providing low-cost local housing in the Dales was poor.

The suggestion was firmly rebutted by the district council's chief executive, Harry Tabiner.