A CONSULTATION has begun asking people how it can conserve and enhance the tranquillity, remoteness and starry night skies of the moors.

The North York Moors National Park Authority is seeking to get the public’s opinion on the future of the moors. It will then use the answers to the consultation when preparing a new Local Plan for the North York Moors.

This will be the document it uses to help decide planning applications within the national park in the future.

Tranquillity is one of the “special qualities” of the North York Moors named in the authority’s management plan. Work by the Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) in 2006 indicated that 90 per cent of the National Park is classed as “relatively tranquil” when compared to the rest of England.

“A tranquillity policy would state that all development proposals would be assessed in relation to their impact on tranquillity,” the consultation paper said, “and the criteria to be considered would be listed, for instance, visual intrusion, noise, activity levels, traffic generation.”

The second pillar of the consultation is “a feeling of remoteness”. It suggested that development only be allowed in remote areas of the park “for environmental conservation or land management purposes”.

Using a definition of remoteness of being at least 1km away from the nearest postal address point or road, the remote area covers 290 kms2 - or 20 per cent of the National Park.

“These remote locations foster a sense of being close to nature and getting away from the stresses of modern life and are a finite resource which, once lost, cannot be regained,” the paper said.

The third part of the policy will be the preservation of dark night skies over the moors.

On this, the paper said: “As well as being an intrinsic part of the quality of the National Park landscape, dark skies at night are important for wildlife species such as bats, moths and nightjar and help maintain biodiversity within the National Park."

“They are also important for recreation – there is a growing interest in star gazing which in turn has benefits for local communities and the local tourism economy.”

There are three Dark Sky Discovery sites in the National Park at Sutton Bank, Dalby Forest and Danby.

Work carried out in 2016 by the CPRE revealed that the North York Moors was one of the areas in the country that was most free of light pollution.

“We therefore think it is appropriate that planning policy does all it can to protect this asset, as planning is a key area which can influence the quality of night skies,” the paper added.

“It can do this primarily by refusing development in inappropriate locations and by controlling the amount and type of external lighting on new developments.”

This ‘informal’ consultation will inform the creation of a new planning policy for the Moors. For more information go to northyorkmoors.org.uk/localplanspecialqualities.

Send comments to policy@northyorkmoors.org.uk or in writing to the Planning Policy Team, the Old Vicarage, Bondgate, Helmsley. The deadline for comments is January 26.