GROWING families wanting to extend their homes on Dartmoor have come across the brick wall of national park policies.

Their initial failure to clear planning hurdles prompted national park authority member Stuart Barker to sound a note of warning about the precarious future some locals face as they try to stay in the area they love.

The Teignbridge and Devon councillor told moorland planners: ‘If we want to keep families together in our area it is essential that options are available that allow them to extend their homes because they can’t find alternative properties.

‘Large houses are not available or affordable. Extensions are the only way. Our policies don’t accommodate alternatives.’

James McInnes, chairman of the park’s development management committee, said such comments would be helpful in any fine-tuning of the Dartmoor Local Plan.

Two families – the Laitys in Ashburton and the Endacotts in Dunsford – suffered setbacks in their bids to enlarge their homes to accommodate expanding families.

Ashburton portreeve Nick Laity and his wife Gemma want to attach a two-storey extension to their semi-detached home on the Westabrook estate to accommodate their four growing children.

Officers were recommending that the scheme be thrown out because the extension was too big.

National park policies only allow for a 30 per cent jump in space while the Laity family were after 56 per cent – from 80 square metres to 115.

Officers felt the proposal, which mimics the style of the estate’s properties, overwhelmed the existing building. It would also ‘dilute’ the quality of the simple and original form of Westabrook homes.

Mr Laity, with three daughters aged 16, 14 and 11 together with a four-year-old son, said the proposal would give the family the five-bedroom property necessary for them to live comfortably.

‘We desperately need two more bedrooms,’ he pleaded during his statutory three-minute appeal to the committee last Friday.

‘The last thing we want to do is relocate,’ he revealed, adding that five-bedroomed properties in the town were well out of his range.

He said he was not looking for a ‘radical architectural conflict.’ He was merely seeking to make use of a large corner plot he was lucky enough to occupy.

‘We don’t want to consider a move we cannot afford. We just want a home which is fit for purpose,’ he argued.

He added: ‘We want to increase the size of the house because it’s simply too small. It’s been in the family for generations. We love living here.’

Members said they had no problem with the design of the extension. They agreed to visit the site before deciding whether to accept the officers’ recommendation for refusal.

The Endacott family, of Bellever, Dunsford, were not so fortunate. Members threw out their 56 per cent space increase bid because they did not like the design.

They urged the family – also with four children – to return with a more suitable and smaller extension.

Hugh Endacott said there had been no local opposition to the two-storey scheme at their thatched property. The parish council had supported the application.

Committee member Bill Cann said: ‘A better design is needed.’