'This is home to me – it's all I've ever known'

Grace Pounder has lived at Gayle in Upper Wensleydale all her life and she works not far away, in Hawes. Now the 22-year-old is facing homelessness following the death of the owner of the house where she lives.

"Just a one bedroomed flat – that's all I need, there's just me and my partner," says Grace.

"We need somewhere at Gayle, or even as far as Bainbridge or Askrigg. I don't drive and I work just up the road."

So far Grace has drawn a blank. She was told by the council, Richmondshire, that because she has no children, she didn't stand a chance. "They said I was better off looking at private lettings

than waiting for the council to re-home me."

But wages round here do not match local property prices or commercial rents driven upwards by the demand from tourists for Dales holiday accommodation and by well-heeled retirees looking for their country idyll.

For people like Grace, renting from the social housing sector, from councils or housing associations really is the only option. The Chancellor's cuts to the sector will now make a bad situation worse.

Michelle Park, the regional manager of the Housing Federation, the body representing Housing Associations, says the Comprehensive Spending Review this week which cut social housing funding by more than 50 per cent could have a devastating impact in this region. "It would lock out an entire generation," she says.

Colin Dales, chair of North Yorks Chief Housing Officer's group, says: "Many of the rural residents aspire to home ownership. But within the rural economy you're looking at an average wage of about 19,000 per year. And you're talking about an average house price – if you use Richmondshire as an example – of 220,000."

Fleur Butler the leader of Richmondshire Council, says their waiting lists are already some of the worst in the country, with 1,389 people in the queue. In the past 10 months just 128 houses have been allocated. "We have a higher waiting list per head of population than places like Hackney in London," says Coun Butler. "Not only do we have an incredibly large waiting list, but the majority of people on it will never have the chance to access our affordable homes because we have so few."

In the Dales area of her district there are just 106 council houses. There were more but many were sold off under right-to-buy legislation. In the past 10 years, only 66 properties which qualify as social housing have been built in the Wensleydale and Swaledale areas.

The picture worsened following the financial crash and the local house building industry has now stalled completely. At the moment there is not a single commercially-active builder who is building in Richmondshire. That means no social gains either, because housing developers often agreed to build additional social housing in return for planning permission for commercial development.

The only social houses going up at the moment – 160 spread across the district – are being constructed using the central Government money from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). This is the body which took the hit from Chancellor George Osborne in Wednesday's Comprehensive Spending Review. Those who manage the cherished countryside in these parts fear the knock-on effect.

Peter Stockton, the strategic planning officer for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, says: "If you don't have a wider range of housing you're going to have more people commuting into the park to manage it, maintain it and to work here. It just becomes a place where people with large capital assets can live."

Michelle Park from the National Housing Federation echoes those concerns. "In rural areas, a small number of affordable homes can make a huge difference to the community. Cutting new affordable homes could have an extremely damaging impact."

The Chief Housing Officer's group is so concerned about the situation that it is collating data from across North Yorkshire to obtain an accurate picture of the shortage.

There's also alarm about another related issue. This is centred around a new scheme called Choice Based Letting which in the prettiest and most desirable spots, could make it even harder for locals to get a roof over their heads.

From next month, anyone living in seven of the eight districts in the county can apply for any council-administered house in other district apart from Harrogate. A prospective council tenant will be able to fill in a single form for a scheme with one letting policy and one waiting list covering the whole county.

John Blackie, who represents Hawes and High Abbotside on Richmondshire council, believes this will make it harder for people like Grace Pounder because it will open up the waiting lists to many more. "If a local person, born and brought up in a village waits for a social house to become available – and then somebody from as far as 100 miles away over on the East Coast walks straight into that house above them – it will dash their hopes of living within the community they were brought up in."

Coun Fleur Butler defends the new system. She insists local people won't lose out and that not all social housing is included. Those built in exchange for planning permission from the National Park Authority or from Richmondshire District Council have local occupancy rules attached to that permission. So those houses – about 66 housing units in all – are only available to people from within a certain radius.

She adds that an additional safeguard will stop council house migration from one end of Yorkshire to the other.

"For our normal council housing stock, if outsiders apply for eight houses per year – five per cent – then the drawbridge goes up. The rest of that year every house that comes up is only available to people in Richmondshire District."

She says the council had to open its waiting list. Choice Based Letting will help people who need to move short distances across local authority boundaries – for example further down Wesleydale into the areas around Bedale which is covered by Hambledon council– without having to go back to the bottom of the housing waiting list.

But Coun John Blackie is putting forward a motion to the council next Tuesday to try to get the decision reversed.

For Grace Pounder what really matters is that she can live in the place she loves, where her roots are and not have to move away.

"I'm hoping that something sooner or later will come up. This is the sad thing really, this is home to me.

"It's all I know and it's all I've ever known and it hurts more than anything else to think I might not be able to stay any longer."

CW 23/10/10