Home truth is that barns will not solve crisis

THEY REMAIN a testament to rural life through the passing centuries, and a defining image for visitors from across the world to Yorkshire’s countryside.

But hopes that redundant barns and farm buildings could be converted into much needed properties to provide a solution to the affordable homes crisis which is gripping the nation’s rural communities appear to be unfounded.

Since October 2015, planning permission has been given for 28 barns to be converted into homes within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, but just seven have been completed in the last two years. And as reported in

The Yorkshire Post yesterday, the number of farm buildings converted into new homes nationally has dropped by 20 per cent in the past year.

A lending firm, Lendy, said only 1,511 agriculturalto-residential conversion applications were approved nationally in 2016/17, down from 1,890 in 2015/16, and that local authorities rejected 38 per cent of all applications for converting farm buildings to houses last year.

Rural communities are crying out for more housing of all types, according to Jane Harrison, adviser for the Country Land and Business Association in the North.

“Local councils don’t always see the value in converting old farm buildings into residential homes as a way to help solve the rural housing crisis, despite revised government guidance to boost development,” she said.

“Of course wildly inappropriate projects should be refused, but with nearly half of these applications being rejected, farmers and landowners have little faith that these rights can deliver.”

There are an estimated 4,500 traditional farm buildings in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and while barn conversions have been given planning approval, they have so far proved to be no more than a piecemeal contribution towards resolving the ongoing housing crisis.

The average house price in the park is £253,000, about eight times higher than average salaries. When the park authority drew up its Local Plan in 2015, it allowed for roadside barns to be converted into homes.

The park authority’s head of sustainable development, Peter Stockton, said: “We are approving a lot of barn conversions as permanent homes and holiday homes, but there is an issue around how quickly they are getting completed. At any time we have 200 planning permissions that aren’t progressing and there is not much we can do about that.

“It’s relatively cheap to put in an application but to start work on a barn, they are expensive projects. We don’t pretend they will deliver affordable housing but if these barns are in family ownership the best outcome is that they convert them themselves and have a son or daughter to live in them.

“It’s a bespoke policy that is never going to be as important as new build houses or potentially making better use of existing stock of housing. It works well for some people but not a solution to the broader issues we have got – the second homes issue, under-used housing and even sub-division of properties.

“Where existing larger properties are in places where there is no longer a demand for large properties, they could be sub-divided for different generations of families to live in.”

A controversial plan to seek a rise in council tax on second homes in the park will be debated by Richmondshire District Council next week.