ANY new homes built in the Yorkshire Dales National Park will only be available for local people with a need to live there.

From this week, planning applications received by the national park will be judged against this new policy.

The idea is to prevent people buying newly built properties for second homes or holiday lets.

In the past such moves have driven up the average cost of a house within the national park to £177,628, according to a house price survey carried out in 2002. In contrast the average salary for a worker living in the national park is £23,419, according to a survey conducted in 2003.

Members of the park authority agreed to implement the changes at a planning meeting and the decision has been welcomed by park chairman Carl Lis.

"I think it's a big day for the authority. It will enable us to get to the position we think we should be at in terms of meeting local needs," he said.

The policy is part of the Local Plan, which has been backed by Government planning inspector William Carlow.

Local authority member David Ireton welcomed the restrictive policy, but felt it did not go far enough towards making new homes affordable for local people.

Mr Ireton said that although new builds would be available to local people with a local need, very few would be able to take up the offer because of the high cost of housing compared with wages.

"We have got to remove the high cost of the land and the high cost of construction."

Fellow member John Sayer also backed the new policy.

He said : "This should result in more houses for local people being available for purchase at a more affordable price - or for rent via a housing association. It is expected that this will particularly help the younger locals for whom the affordability gap is unbridgeable.

"There is a desperate need to keep a sustainable social structure and age mix to ensure the continuation of local schools and the functions which contribute to the rich variety of Dales life."

Strategic planning officer Peter Stockton said: "It is an important step forward. It means that all new applications for housing in villages within the Dales will need to be justified on the grounds of local need - and approval will be restricted to local occupancy.

"This means in turn that we can start to target the remaining housing sites at people who need to live and work in the Dales."

In 2002 a survey of home ownership revealed that 15 per cent of houses in the national park were second homes.