A woman is defying planning bosses in her battle to stay in her 170-year-old isolated hilltop cottage - without mains water, sewage and electricity.

Sue Woodcock has told Yorkshire Dales guardians she will not move from her back-to-nature lifestyle at her croft, The 57 year-old former-police officer has been told she must vacate the site by November 17 because it breaks planning rules.

Mrs Woodcock, who makes a living by weaving wool from her flock of 100 rare sheep, claims only severe illness would make her leave.

She has lived in the 170 year-old croft, next to a barn, for the last two years, having paid £130,000 for the property.

She relies on a generator for electricity, a chemical toilet and a well for her water.

Her companions are three dogs, five cats, four hedgehogs, 20 ducks three geese, one turkey and clutch of chickens.

She is seeking permission from the Yorkshire Dales National Park to turn the run-down cottage, last occupied in the 1950s, into a home.

She said: "I simply want to escape from the rat-race and hurly-burly of life and live with nature. They see me as a bit of an oddball.

"I'm determined to stay and I'm prepared to fight for what I believe in and I will stick it out as long as I can.

"The only thing that will stop me will be ill-health. This is a very inhospitable place in winter."

She was seeking permission to demolish one internal wall of the two-up-two-down cottage at Yarnbury, near Grassington, to make a kitchen and build a bathroom upstairs.

"I've repaired the roof and walls. The croft will be no bigger than it already is.

"The planners are saying it had been abandoned and so can't be lived in, and if it was lived in it would be a new dwelling."

Mrs Woodcock relies on her police pension - she was a motorcycle officer in the south of England - and earns money gardening and washing up.

Last year she published a novel, The Cellar Pets, and is working on another.

A Yorkshire Dales National Park spokesman said the building was deemed to have been abandoned and as such could only be re-occupied if it met certain rules, which officers believe it does not.

The rules relate to the building's historic and architectural importance, the degree of re-building required and the impact on its architectural character.

Mrs Woodcock has been told she must stop the unauthorised occupation by November 17.

An appeal has been lodged.

e-mail: clive.white@bradford.newsquest.co.uk