CRAVEN District Council has been effectively left without an affordable housing policy after a High Court judge ruled in favour of a Skipton developer.

The council will also have to pay Skipton Properties legal costs - believed to be in the region of £30,000 to £40,000 - on top of an out of court settlement also in the last few days of £27,000.

Skipton Properties - responsible for a number of large scale housing developments in the area, including Skipton's 100 home Elsey Croft - challenged the council over its 40 per cent affordable housing policy.

On Monday, a High Court judge ruled in favour of the developer, quashing the policy adopted last summer and leaving planners having to rely on national planning guidance, which is much more vague on affordable housing.

The judgement followed an out of court settlement by the council at the end of last week to pay Skipton Properties £27,000 after the developer challenged it over the consultation process over preferred housing sites in the emerging local plan. The council will also have to pay its own legal fees, which are expected to be of a similar amount.

A spokesman for Craven District Council said the council was considering how best it could move forward ad believed the judgement would be felt by other planning authorities.

“We are very disappointed with the outcome of the case which will have implications for many other local authorities," said the spokesman.

“The judge made it clear that the legislation in this area is confusing and many other local authorities have interpreted it as we did. This judgement makes it all the more important that we continue with our preparation of the Local Plan so that we have robust policies in place relating to affordable housing provision. We believe it’s in the interest of everyone for new housing developments to provide balanced communities."

"In relation to the separate case which was due to be heard last week, careful consideration was given to the usefulness of spending time and limited resources on continuing to defend the claim, given that we were intending to carry out further consultation regardless of the outcome. Therefore the council decided to consent to judgement, which meant that we had to pay the claimant’s costs. We felt this was the best decision for the council in the circumstances.”

Skipton Properties is due to face Craven District Council again in June at a two day public inquiry concerning its Elsey Croft development. The developer appealed to the Planning Inspectorate after the council refused it permission to halve the number of affordable homes at the site from 40 per cent to 20 per cent - or 21 homes.

Skipton Properties did not wish to comment.