A FORMER chair of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has reacted angrily to a draft report on the impact of tourism on Craven's rural communities.

Cllr Carl Lis said he was 'furious' about aspects of the report of Craven District Council's select committee, claiming there were 'serious inaccuracies' including getting the name of the national park authority wrong.

Cllr Lis, a long standing member of the national park authority, who also sits on the district council, said aspects of the report were good, but that before it was made public, the national park should be given the opportunity to correct the mistakes.

They included an inference that the national park was responsible for organised group charity walks of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, and that park rangers were volunteers, when they are actually paid officers. He also pointed out how the national park had led on attempts to increase council tax on second homes in the national park and he criticised how the report had referred to the Yorkshire Dales National Park 'Association', instead of 'authority'.

He said one of the national park's key priorities was to encourage people to visit the Dales, but that did not mean that the authority had anything to do with the charity organised walks, some of which attract around 600 people a time.

And, he claimed that the first the national park had known about the report was when its press office had been contacted for a comment.

"It infuriates me that something that could have been so good has been lost because of the inaccuracies," he said.

The park had put together a code of conduct for those walking the Three Peaks, it liaised with organisers and leaflets were distributed to visitors. It was also there for all to see on the authority's website and social media, which reached a quarter of a million people, he said.

In response, committee chair, Cllr David Staveley, said that the national park had sent someone to one of their working group meetings, held over the last year, but that they had been a 'junior officer' whose job it was to promote tourism and seemed un prepared for what was being asked. "Perhaps they should have taken us more seriously, " he said.

He added there was a clear feeling in some villages that residents had been abandoned - from what parish councils had told the committee - and it was time someone stood up for them.

Villagers in Horton-in -Ribblesdale, where people carrying out the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge usually start, had to put up with people with loudspeakers early in the morning, and late at night, seeing off and welcoming back walkers, he said.

He said: "When people are leaving their homes to escape because they can't get some peace and quiet in their own homes, something is wrong; while the national park can't be blamed if people are not heeding the message, then perhaps they (the national park) need to look again at the message."

An 'aggrieved' Cllr Staveley stressed it was not about carrying out a 'hatchet job' on the tourism trade, and there were some elements that were working well, but there was definitely room for improvement.

He said representatives of parish councils had been 'quite forthright' at meetings of the select committee, and some communities organised their own litter picking sessions because of anti-social littering amongst some visitors.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including a joint approach by all relevant authorities to tackle the impact of parking in 'honeypot' destinations, such as Malham.

Cllr Staveley added at the end of the day, they were recommendations and it would be up to other organisations to consider them. Craven District Council was also entering its last months before it was replaced in April next year by the new North Yorkshire Council, and it would then be up to that authority.

Members of the committee, which had been due to accept the report, before sending it off to the council's policy committee for adoption, agreed to make some changes to the recommendations, and also to send it first to the national park authority, and all other parish councils, emergency services, and tourism agency, Welcome to Yorkshire, involved in putting the report together.

The report is now due to come back to the council's select committee when it meets in the middle of July.