Draft plans to meet future housing needs in the Yorkshire Dales National Park have been given the seal of approval.

Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) agreed a raft of proposals that might see an increase in the amount of affordable and local needs housing over the next 10 years.

And they gave the go ahead for the plan to be sent out for public consultation.

Last year the YDNPA Housing Working Group, which was set up to oversee the review of housing policy, called on organisations and individuals in the National Park to put forward possible sites where affordable housing could be built.

More than 140 sites were suggested and, of those, 38 have been put on a shortlist for consultation. Details of their location as well as the whole Housing Development Plan will now be placed on the Authority website at www.yorkshiredales.org.uk

Yvonne Peacock, the Authority’s Member Champion for Forward Planning, said: “The most significant impact of the draft Housing Development Plan, if implemented, would be the benefit it would bring to the communities through the release of land in response to local housing need. It will help people to live and work in the dales.

“Impacts on landscape, settlement character or climate change emissions will be small in scale, localised or capable of reduction.”

The Working Group members will now meet to agree a programme of public consultation over the spring and summer. It will then consider the response and report it, together with any recommendations for amendment, to the Authority for decision. If the Authority is then agreeable, an amended version would be placed on ‘publication’ and then submitted to a Planning Inspector for independent examination.