Role model status for £8m mill conversion to housing

The Rural Housing Advisory Group, established as a professional advisers to the Government on all the issues concerning delivery of rural homes, is to recommend the re-development of the derelict Greenroyd Mill, based in Sutton in Craven, near Skipton, into dozens of affordable homes, should be replicated across the country as best practice to deliver critically needed new housing.

The announcement comes amid a growing homes crisis in rural North Yorkshire, with house prices soaring far above stagnating wages at one of the highest rates in the country.

In Craven, the average wage is under £18,000 a year although the average house price is £220,000.

The average home in the Dales now costs £287,180, despite a quarter of all incomes for the national park’s 10,000 households averaging just £16,264, with the local economy centred on the relatively poorly paid farming and tourism sectors.

Rob Warm, lead manager for the National Housing Federation in Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “Tapping into our industrial heritage is a key to helping this.

“Wherever the problem is most acute is where people are going to have to think the most imaginatively and come up with different solutions to solve it. It is about finding the right development for the right communities.”

The site, which had been derelict for 20 years, was originally earmarked for a private development which stalled in 2008.

It was taken over by the not-for-profit housing association Yorkshire Housing and received Homes and Communities Agency funding, and officially opened in July 2011 to provide 65 high quality, affordable homes for local people.

It was visited by the delegation from the Rural Housing Advisory Group last month.

Fraser Neasham, development project manager for Yorkshire Housing, said: “We are delighted it is getting some attention as an example of how you can redevelop an historic building in a rural area.

“It is a very long and tricky process that we went though and not every old mill can be turned into flats for sale or for rent.”

As revealed last week by the Yorkshire Post, the worsening housing crisis means the Dales national park authority is set to revise its flagship local occupancy rule introduced to prevent the spread of second homes.

Senior national park authority officers have indicated they are looking at altering the rule banning almost all new homes from being sold to outsiders and broadening its scope to include people who work in the Dales, as well as inserting a clause meaning if a property is now repossessed it can be re-sold on the open market.

It is an attempt to boost mortgage lending on new homes which has all but dried up in the worsening economic crisis owing to the lack of a sell-on value for houses restricted by the ban.

Residents, developers and school governors are adding their voices to calls to scale back the local occupancy restrictions, with the problem of providing affordable homes for families widely seen to have worsened in recent years despite the rules.

A Government planning inspector is set to return later this month with a decision on an overarching plan for future housing in the Yorkshire Dales, in which he has also been asked by the national park authority to reduce the 50 per cent affordable homes requirement on future developments.

The plans which are with the Government inspector have been drawn up over five years in a bid to counter the housing crisis.