THE number of new houses expected to be built in Craven looks set to be reduced from 290 to 214 per year.

The housing target - for Craven outside the national park - is included in the emerging, long awaited Craven Local Development Plan covering the next 15 years up to 2032.

Craven District Council, which at one time thought it ran the risk of having the plan taken out of its hands if it exceeded the government target of completion early next year, now predicts the plan will be complete in late 2017.

The new housing figure, following new evidence in an updated Strategic Housing Market Assessment, has been agreed by the council's Spatial Planning Sub-Committee and will now go to the council's decision making Policy Committee.

And it could mean some sites proposed for housing being removed from the final plan, which is now due to go out to another informal consultation in February or March next year.

David Smurthwaite, the council’s strategic manager, said: “These figures are based on a new, objectively assessed housing need for the district. This reduction in housing figures allows us greater flexibility in choosing sites and especially in addressing issues such as flooding and density of housing, and it may lead to some sites being withdrawn from the Local Plan. "

Councillors also agreed to recommend that the dwellings should all be allocated outside the area of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, to eliminate uncertainty over planning in the national park, which has produced its own development plan.

And they also accepted the employment land review report, which proposes 29 hectares (about 71 acres) of new employment land in Craven.

Once the figures are approved by the council's Policy Committee - which next meets on Tuesday, December 13 - they will be used to prepare the next draft of the Craven local plan for informal consultation next February or March.

The plan timetable was revised in October, partly due to the emergence of changes in the objectively assessed need for housing.

It is now predicted that it will be adopted by the end of next year.

The plan sets out how land in Craven should be used to achieve economic, environmental and social goals. Policies are used to decide planning applications including housing, retail and employment uses up to 2032.