Since 2016, when government pressured park authorities to relax the policy on barns, hundreds of barn conversions in the Yorkshire Dales national park have done nothing to stem the tide of schools, shops and services closing down (Plan to allow barn conversions without planning permission ‘would destroy England’s national parks’, 7 August). Nor have they reversed the demographic trend of an older (and well-off) population, with young people and lower-income families forced out. What they have done is raise house prices, add to holiday homes and increase traffic and suburban sprawl. Barn conversions are not affordable housing and their development is not limited to their immediate curtilage.
So far, planning restrictions have preserved the unique field barn and drystone wall landscapes of, for example, Swaledale. Take a typical postcard of Swaledale and add to every barn a driveway, a couple of cars and refashioned walls. Sketch in a garden, a shed, a trampoline, and imagine outdoor decorative lighting, the utilities and traffic. The working upland countryside we love is effectively erased.
Bruce McLeod
Chair, Friends of the Dales
