Hard-working North Yorkshire family in affordable homes village crisis

However, the family found themselves in a hugely stressful situation while they were living in cramped conditions in a two-bed house deep in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in the village of Bainbridge.

The Handleys purchased the property in 2009 in a part-share agreement provided by the Broadacres Housing Association after they had previously rented in the village while being frozen out of affordable home ownership.

"Life is very stressful and difficult at the moment," Mrs Handley, 34, said. "We are in complete limbo. We can't plan anything and don't know what the future holds."

"After Dexter was born we were in desperate need of a next stage house, but in Bainbridge there are no next stage houses anywhere," the mobile beauty therapist said.

She added: "There isn't anything to even look at - house prices are going to be way too much because of where we live, especially because of second homes around here pushing the house prices up and up.

"We are in complete limbo and have no room. We can't plan anything and as a family we don't know what the future holds."

"It's really upsetting because generations of family are here," she said. "Both me and Dan have been brought up here and went to school nearby. We want to bring our family up in the same area," she said.

"We absolutely love it here but we just keep thinking what are we going to do.

"We can't possibly buy here because of the house prices. Quite simply the availability isn't here."

"We are actively having to look elsewhere," she said. "But even in those places we would be stretched for a mortgage. It would be a proper push."

Mrs Handley said that Bainbridge was in the midst of an affordable housing crisis with the future of the village in jeopardy.

"There is most definitely a crisis in Bainbridge to do with affordable housing. There is just nothing here," she said.

"We don't have options at the moment. We are just living as we are and will probably have to move out of the area."

"Also there are lots of young people I know that won't even think about having children because there isn't anywhere they can live to be able to do that.

"It's a worrying time for the future of the village at the moment."