'Villages without new homes will become museums'

Villages in the Peak District could become "museums" if new housing is not approved, a councillor has warned.

On Thursday, Derbyshire Dales District Council debated an upcoming new Local Plan for the Peak District National Park Authority, which would outline potential development in the area for the new few decades.

About half of the Derbyshire Dales population and land mass falls within the national park, with the authority having planning powers there, not the council.

Councillor Peter O'Brien said villages in the Peak District needed "nourishing" with new housing, and asked why "market housing, housing to buy, is virtually banned in the national park".

It comes after people in the area told the BBC about the problems families faced getting on the housing ladder, with a rising number of properties in the Dales being used as second homes and holiday lets.

Dee Goddard, 31, of Curbar in Derbyshire, told the BBC that the housing shortage - affecting availability and affordability - has pushed her family to the point of "giving up".

At the meeting, which the Local Democracy Reporting Service attended, O'Brien added: "The lifeblood has been sucked out of many of our communities because many working families cannot find homes they can afford to buy or rent, so they have no choice but to vote with their feet."

O'Brien, who represents Eyam, Grindleford, Stoney Middleton and Hathersage on the district council, said: "We are sleepwalking into a future where our villages become museum pieces, beautifully preserved, but that is about all.

"What damage is a sensibly designed, well-constructed new building that a local family in my village can buy?"

Current plans from the park authority were not to earmark any specific sites for housing, as other local authorities do, but to instead detail some "exception sites" and make allowances purely for "affordable housing" projects.

It also looks to retain a policy in which would-be buyers need to have had a local connection to the Peak District for 10 years to qualify for affordable housing.

O'Brien said this was not "realistic" and left people "having to live in expensive rented accommodation in order to prove their commitment to the community".

Councillor David Chapman, who is also a member of the park authority, said: "It is not strictly true that the Peak Park doesn't encourage housing development.

"We have got the Bakewell development, the Hartington development, we've got the Tideswell development – a local needs development for 30 houses."

A number of other measures and restrictions have also been proposed to tackle the issue of housing availability in the Dales, including the council voting to increase tax for people with second homes.

Other restrictions - backed by the previous Conservative government - would make it mandatory for homeowners to apply for planning permission to turn their property into a holiday let.

The district council has urged the new Labour administration to bring this legislation to the House of Commons.

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