A WHARFEDALE resident has been allowed to keep a building he converted without permission to provide a home for his son.

Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s planning committee heard today that the building in Mill Lane, Hebden, had been converted from a former water turbine house into a home without planning permission.

The applicant, Andrew Whitham, told members he had done the work “out of necessity” to provide a home for his son, his son’s partner, Sophie Thompson, and their two young children.

Several committee members said the conversion work had improved the appearance of the building and it should not be demolished just because the work was done without permission.

But others were concerned that the applicant had ignored planning rules and had done the work despite a previous planning application being turned down.

Retrospective planning permission was granted by the committee, but authority chairman Carl Lis said: “I can never accept this kind of flagrant flouting of planning rules.

“The applicant knew planning permission was needed but went ahead without it.

On this occasion the committee members decided it would be bloody minded to demolish what is a perfectly good building because of his actions.

“But planning policies and rules are here not only to protect this beautiful landscape from inappropriate building but also to protect our rural communities from intrusive development.”

Robert Heseltine, the authority’s member champion for development management, said: “The authority cannot condone what the applicant did in building without consent.

“However, we should also recognise what has been built is not entirely unreasonable and, in all the circumstances – including the provision of a local occupancy home for a family with young twins – a compassionate view was taken on this occasion.”