A businessman and his retired GP wife have launched a legal bid to force national park chiefs to buy premises they claim is a “white elephant” after their plans for an alternative health centre were turned down.

Shafiq Chohan and his wife Nishat have served a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) on the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority over a former telephone exchange at Hazelwood, on Beamsley Moor.

Under the little-used procedure, landowners can seek a purchase order and be paid compensation when they believe “the land has become incapable of reasonably beneficial use by virtue of a planning decision”.

The move follows a long planning wrangle during which the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) condemned the building – also known as Chohan Cottage – as an eyesore after alterations were made without planning permission.

The Chohans, from Bradford, bought the single-storey, 1960s white-rendered building in 1994 after it was sold by BT. It is highly-visible from the A59 Skipton-to-Harrogate road.

They have submitted various planning applications, but now face enforcement action from the YDNPA for putting in windows and an upper storey without necessary consents.

Mr Chohan said the conversion, which cost around £50,000, laid the foundations for the couple’s alternative medical centre, which would have included exercise, treatment and massage rooms for patients suffering from conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.

“We feel we have been treated like second-class citizens and that is why we have issued the purchase order,” said Mr Chohan, 74, a former GP practice manager.

“Good health is humanity’s birthright and a new health centre would have benefited the local community enormously.

“We believe the building has an existing commercial use as it was used by BT and we cannot understand why we were not granted planning permission. We think there would have been a great demand for our services and for that reason we think the YDNPA should have made an exception in our case.”

But the park authority has rejected the purchase notice and now the case will be referred to the Secretary of State. Meanwhile officers have been asked to assess the scope of low-cost acquisition and possible demolition.

In a planning report, it was stated the alterations made the building “bulkier, more prominent and unsightly”. Officers said the external alterations were inappropriate and the proposed developments were a damaging intrusion on an area of natural beauty.

“It is not an exaggeration to say the building has, through alterations, become an eyesore and dominates an otherwise wild moorland landscape at a busy gateway into the national park,” said the report.

“Little justification has been put forward to support the use as a medical centre, particularly in such an isolated and inaccessible position.”

Peter Watson, head of planning at the YDNPA, said: “We get these buildings from time to time which seem to attract odd attempts to change their use. This was a gamble. The value of the site is for the owner to establish, but it has a very low value in principle. This is the first time a purchase order has been served.”

When the land was put up for auction in 1991, a national park officer warned prospective buyers: “We would only allow residential development of this site if there were proven to be an essential agricultural need for the development at this location...

“I wish to make it clear, before you commit yourself to the purchase, that, in view of the policies that this authority operates, I see very little prospect of beneficial re-use or redevelopment of this site.”