Decision on visitor centre development delayed after plans change

A PROPOSAL to bolster the future of a tourist attraction that has attracted hordes of visitors since 2003 has been postponed for a month after late changes to the plan.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s planning committee heard Hazel Brow Visitor Centre’s scheme to build five hotel-style bedrooms with glass balconies, create a 32-cover cafe, and covert a joiner’s shop into holiday lets at Low Row, Swaledale, had been recommended for refusal due to road safety concerns.

The proposal, which aimed to enable workshops based around traditional farming techniques such as butter-making, spinning, and weaving, as well as yoga and photography, be staged alongside the working family farm, had been revised from a similar application last year.

Activities the farm has become known for include sheep racing, goose herding and alpaca trekking. To overcome planners’ concerns over issues such as landscape impact, plans to create an underground nature observation room and launch a craft barn were abandoned.

However, after the Park Authority’s officers recommended the ambition be rejected for a second time due to concerns over the number of visitors entering and leaving the site from the B6270, the centre revised its proposals again.

Officers told the committee the proposal was now limited to providing two accommodation units at the converted former joiner’s shop, works to improve the visual appearance of the existing visitor centre and make it more attractive from both the inside and outside.

The meeting heard plans to build five hotel-style bedrooms with glass balconies have been abandoned. Officers said the changes would mean fewer vehicles visiting the centre, so it needed time to consider if road safety concerns had been overcome.