A PLAN for the future of the North York Moors between now and 2035 says that hundreds of new homes are required in the park to meet the needs of local communities.

A minimum of 551 new homes are recommended to be built over the period of the new local plan, including about 200 in Helmsley and others in villages across the authority.

At a meeting of the North York Moors planning committee on Thursday, members of the authority agreed to put the draft local plan out for public consultation.

The purpose of the local plan document is to set out a suite of planning policies for the national park that will be used to help decide planning applications in the future.

The draft plan report outlines that the moors is a place of a falling - and ageing - population, low wages and large numbers of second homes.

Although more than 22,000 people live in the park and there are nearly 8,000 jobs, there has been a 4.2 per cent fall in population between 2001 and 2016; a loss of 1,108 people.

The report added: “Wages are low due to a concentration of employment in the agricultural and tourism sectors.

“In 2014 around a third of all households had incomes of £20,000 or less.”

With regards to housing, house prices are high compared to wages and there has been a growth in second home ownership. About 17.3 per cent of the national park’s housing stock was recorded at the last census as households with no usual residents – a 37.4 per cent increase since 2001.

Malcolm Bowes, deputy chairman of the authority, said in the report: “This draft plan is the product of extensive research, consultation, discussion and testing over several years.

“It is concerned with the next 15 years. It seeks to balance the overriding need to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the national park, with the need for new homes, jobs and services.”

The plan includes a number of other recommendations, including ambitions to “maintain dark skies and a feeling of remoteness”, support tourism and recreation enterprises and “ensure that land management activities contribute to the national park’s natural beauty and biodiversity”.

The draft plan will be available for inspection at the North York Moors authority offices, visitors centres and at local libraries.

It will also host 12 drop-in events in villages around the park for local people to attend. These will be staged between August 14 and October 2.

Following the public consultation, the local plan is due to be published on February 11, 2019, before being submitted for an examination in May 2019, ahead of its adoption in January 2020.

For more information and to read the draft document, go to northyorkmoors.org.uk