⚠️ Archived Content
This page relates to the 2019–2024 National Park Management Plan, which is now archived. For the latest aims and objectives, please visit the 2025–30 Management Plan landing page.
By 2024, secure significant funding to repair, restore, and – where appropriate – find adaptive new uses for traditional field barns, particularly those in Swaledale, Arkengarthdale and Littondale.
How the local partners are doing on this objective
Progress: 8 traditional barns were restored through the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme in 2024/25. In addition, 26 traditional farm buildings were repaired as part of conversion to residential uses in 2024/25.
Over the lifetime of the Management Plan, 225 barns have been restored, repaired and/or brought back into use.
Press Releases & Related articles:
21 June 2022 – Examples of recent barn restorations
21 June 2022 – All barns great and small! Dales’ ‘laithes’ receive a makeover
Rationale: Traditional field barns and drystone walls are a defining quality of this National Park but half of them are thought to be in poor or very bad condition. The sheer number of buildings (>6,000) and length of walls (>8,000km), together with the absence of sufficient funding means not everything can or will be conserved. But if significant new funding can be found, some of the most important examples can be targeted, especially in the two designated ‘Barns and Walls Conservation Areas’. Recent changes to planning policies have created more opportunities to convert suitable roadside barns to housing or business uses. Many other buildings are not suitable for conversion to intensive uses at all, so further effort is needed to stimulate more innovative and sensitive options to broaden the potential for adaptive re-use.
Lead partner: Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority
Supporting partners: Natural England; Historic England; Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust; Rural Payments Agency
Further information: Traditional Farm Buildings, Developing barns,
Cost over 5 years: £7,800,000
Funding shortfall: £7,300,000
Related objectives: A3; A5, A6; A7, A8, B11, E2; E4; E9; F1
Ecosystem services: Sense of place and inspiration; Sense of history; Biodiversity,
Trade-offs: Works to traditional field barns – especially conversion to new uses – can have impacts on the landscape character (A3) and wildlife (C2). Planning policies in the Local Plan provide a framework for these impacts to be balanced against the long term benefits of maintaining buildings in viable uses that, in many cases, will avoid declining condition and dereliction, together with securing wider social and economic public benefits from the new use.
Baseline: