A LARGE storage building can be constructed in the garden of The Cottage at Beamsley so the owner can restore and maintain nine classic cars.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s planning committee gave approval for what will be a dual-pitched, double-gabled building with a larger footprint than the cottage.

A previous application was refused by the committee in February because it was felt the building would have a negative impact upon the village and landscape.

This time, however, the planning officer recommended approval because of the changes the owner had agreed to make. These include moving the building two metres further into the garden and reducing its frontage by a metre. There will be vertically-boarded doors instead of roller doors.

But North Yorkshire County councillor John Blackie is still unhappy with the scheme. He pointed out its footprint is larger than that of The Cottage itself, and added: “This is not a domestic application."

He asked the committee to consider the troubles "normal people living in normal houses" went through to get applications approved.

He said by describing the building as domestic rather than commercial, there would be no restriction on working hours. He is also concerned there could be “planning creep”, especially if the use of the building changed sometime in the future. “It will be a Trojan horse,” he added.

The planning officer said the owner would have to apply for planning permission for any change of use.

Peter Charlesworth, the chairman of the authority, told the committee: “I voted against the application earlier this year because I thought it was out of scale and inappropriate.

“In a sense, I think we can congratulate ourselves because we did oppose (that application) and that has led to co-operation and a much, much improved result, with this building not being as incongruous or as prominent.”

He added: “There are no objections from local people and it’s not going to harm the landscape.”