IT IS a thoroughly British trait for people who are unhappy with something going on their locality to vent their frustrations by blaming 'the council' for whatever is irking them.

That's true even if it's not always clear which 'council' they should be pointing the finger at. In Skipton, for example, there are county, district and town versions to choose from, and the question of who has responsibility for what can get genuinely confusing for those of us who are not actively involved in local government.

Nor do things necessarily become any simpler when you move into the Craven countryside, for here you may find parish councils or meetings at the grassroots level, then you still have the district and county bodies with their various roles and responsibilities - and in a large swathe of the district you also have the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

The national park is a bit different from the others because it's not exactly a 'local authority', as its name helpfully suggests.

As a former head of the park administration once pointed out to a meeting of authority members, it is a 'national' park and has responsibility for issues of national significance, as those of us privileged enough to live in or near such areas of high landscape and heritage value as the Dales would do well to remember.

Local authorities in this neck of the woods are generally overseen by directly elected councillors, but the park authority has traditionally consisted of a mix of councillors, some of whom represent areas within the park, and people appointed by the government because they have a special interest or expertise.

Since the park is not responsible for providing universal local services such as education or waste collection, being concerned primarily with conserving a very special series of landscapes and ensuring people have access to this treasure, you could argue that it is not a 'council' in the usual sense. Therefore it need not act like other authorities and should not suffer from the finger of blame in the way they do.

However, in one of its major functions the park very definitely does take on a 'council' function; one which, if the park did not exist, would presumably fall to Craven District Council or, possibly, North Yorkshire County Council. I am referring, of course, to planning.

Planning has a peculiar place in Britain's public life, being generally ignored until its consequences end up on people's doorsteps, at which point it becomes a seriously hot issue.

If I may be allowed to backtrack a few decades, to when I worked as a reporter in Craven the 1980s and 1990s, planning was certainly then a hot issue for the national park. Indeed, its leaders would occasionally bemoan the fact that a function which took up a relatively small proportion of its time and resources should generate such controversy.

When I returned to Craven as a journalist earlier this year one of the first things I was told about was a long and, one the face of it, quite disturbing saga about a particular planning application involving a local farming family living in the park. Since then I have heard a number of grumbles from Dales residents about planning issues.

On a more public level, in recent weeks we have had what appeared to be a fairly serious disagreement between park authority members and officials over the fate of a barn conversion in Hebden, and a row between the park and the local parish council over an affordable housing scheme for Grassington.

The latter led the chairman of the parish council to write a letter to this newspaper, published last week, in which he described the park's attitude towards local opinion as 'disregard, bordering on contempt', and suggested planning decisions for Upper Wharfedale might be better made in Craven rather than 'in the remoteness of Bainbridge'.

Now, none of the above necessarily means that the park's planning side is not functioning properly. Planning decisions are rarely popular with all concerned, and the controversy surrounding them can be clearly seen in those parts of Craven which are outside the park area.

Indeed, residents of villages nearer the West Yorkshire border which are under constant development pressure might well be envious of the constraints applied within the park,

while Craven District Council's draft Local Plan has thus far had more brickbats than bouquets cast its way.

There is also the fact, alluded to above, that the park can be viewed as a national treasure, and therefore its policies should not perhaps be influenced primarily by local views - which is the very point the previous park officer was making to authority members.

However, I would suggest, at the very least, that the park's leaders should not be in any way complacent about the situation. What could be done to improve things?

The most radical suggestion would be for the park to hand over its planning function to a new or existing outside body. Doubtless this would be strongly resisted and be complicated by the need for central government approval and action, but it would have some potential benefits for the park, not least in terms of divesting itself of the controversy associated with planning decisions. Of course, for such a move to work it would need to be properly resourced and have a strong policy framework in place.

Less radically, if the park is to retain a 'council' role then its leaders must accept being grumbled at the way other local authorities are - and perhaps should consider some of the positive arguments other local authorities use when seeking to justify their decisions.

Among the strongest of these is the one about local democracy; if people disapprove of a policy or decision, they can lobby their local councillor on the issue. One of the bitterest complaints I have heard down the years (and still hear) about Dales debates is indeed the one about the remoteness of some of the decision-makers from the area involved. "He/she didn't know anything about it," is a comment I have heard many times following a park planning meeting.

The park is already seeking to involve more grassroots opinion by bringing parish council members onto the authority; it would be fascinating to see whether direct elections for park authority members bucked the trend of voter apathy that so often afflicts local politics.

In the meantime, perhaps the park could look at holding some of its planning meetings in Craven; though it must be said that Bainbridge is significantly less remote than County Hall at Northallerton, where the meetings were once held.

And if controversy continues over park planning decisions, then there are silver linings for some of us; they give the journalists something to write about.