A CLAMPDOWN on the number of expensive homes being built in the Dales is expected to help prevent young locals being forced out of their communities.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority hopes to restrict the number of second homes being snapped up by outsiders in favour of building new affordable houses for local people.

Complaints have been raised about locals being displaced by wealthy offcumdens, who want second homes or retirement homes in the Dales. This trend has pushed up house prices beyond the reach of young local people setting up home for the first time.

But now the authority's planning committee has come up with ways to stop this trend and reduce house prices by about 30 per cent.

In the draft local plan, Dales villages have been divided into three groups, depending on their scope for new housing development and on the services they offer.

Members said the key service centres of Grassington, Hawes, Reeth and Sedbergh had the environmental capacity for new housing, infilling and conversion.

In these larger villages 50 per cent of all new housing has to be built as affordable housing for local people if a need can be identified. Proposals that do not meet these requirements will be refused.

Local need is defined in a number of ways:

o National park residents moving out of family homes to set up on their own.

o The head of the household or their partner being employed by an established business in the national park.

o A householder already living in the national park living in a house deemed unsuitable by the environmental health department.

o Elderly or disabled people requiring sheltered or more suitable accommodation who already live in the national park.

o People leaving tied accommodation in the national park.

o Former national park residents with close relatives in the national park, who have an exceptional need to return.

o Anyone with a proven need to live in the national park may be authorised.

In the second category - service villages - which includes Embsay, Langcliffe, Threshfield, Clapham, Giggleswick, Settle and Burnsall, all new build housing and conversions will only be sold to local people. Occupancy will be restricted to meet local affordable housing needs.

However, about 90 per cent of all existing dwellings in the area are sold on the open market so there are still opportunities for people who do not meet the 'local need' definition to buy properties.

In the smallest villages, including Appletreewick, Arncliffe and Linton, where there is no scope for new development, conversions of buildings into houses will only be approved if they meet local needs.

The strategies are expected to provide opportunities for 700 new houses in the national park, and revitalise local communities.

The average national park house price was £152,000 in 2000 compared to £59,000 in Yorkshire as a whole and £81,000 nationally, although average incomes are well below the national norm.

The problems of lack of affordable housing have been exacerbated by a growth in second homes. One in five houses is already a second home, rising to three in five in popular tourist villages like Bolton Abbey.

The draft local plan, which contains policies against which all planning applications in the national park are assessed, will go out to public consultation in April. It is hoped the plan will be adopted by September 2004.

As well as housing, the document includes planning guidelines for employment, farming, sport and recreation, visitor attractions, transport and protecting community facilities.

The guidelines state that community facilities like pubs and banks should be protected. Post offices, shops, and village halls can only be developed for housing if it can be demonstrated the facility is no longer viable or a suitable replacement can be secured.

A report to the committee stated: "The importance of community facilities is essential in retaining communities in the national park. There is little evidence to suggest that recent decline in community facilities and services will be reversed."