A YOUNG farming couple could be forced out of their village and ‘left homeless’ after national park planning officers found their home did not have planning permission.

Michael and Anne Carter sunk their joint life savings of £25,000 into a chalet dwelling on family farm land after being refused a mortgage in 2010.

At the time, the site on Black Bull Farm, near Witherslack, housed a three-bedroom timber structure used by seasonal farm workers.

Mr Carter’s mother Christine said she contacted the Lake District National Park Authority for advice before demolishing the previous building, and was told that planning permission was not needed if the new building was on the same footprint as the old one, and of a similar size.

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But when a planning officer visited the farm this year as part of a site visit for another application, they noticed the caravan, and a retrospective planning application was submitted by Christine Carter after an investigation.

Planning officers recommended the application for refusal, saying it was against the authority’s planning policy, and could set a precedent for other static homes to be used as permanent accommodation.

It was sent to the authority’s Development Control Committee after a flood of support from the local community – including 30 letters and a petition with 13 names pleading for the couple to be allowed to remain in their home.

Scores of residents from the nearby village of Mill Side turned up to the committee meeting last week, at which the family’s agent Peter Winter said of all the applications he had worked on, “none is more difficult, or has such far reaching consequences.”

He told committee members, “This couple have found themselves in this situation due to either a miscommunication or poor advice from this authority.

“They would not be able to afford a house nearby, and they would have nowhere else to go if this application is refused.”

Cllr John Holmes also spoke in support of the pair, saying there was a chronic shortage of affordable homes for local people in the area.

Committee members voted to defer the decision until April to give Michael and Anne time to come up with alternatives.

Geoff Davies said: “I’ve done a lot of soul-searching on this – the chalet doesn’t do significant landscape harm but we have to think of the harm that might be done elsewhere in the National Park if we set a precedent here.”

Speaking after the meeting, Michael, 30, and Anne, 25, told the Gazette their first course of action would be to try and improve the appearance of the chalet.

Michael said: “Their decision was better than a ‘no’ but there’s a long way to go. There’s no alternative on the farm for us and we would be homeless if they say no in April – we’d have to leave the village.”