YORKSHIRE Dales planners condemned unauthorised works to a barn conversion as “a truly shocking act of vandalism”.

An enforcement notice is to be served on the owner of Snowdrop Barn in Maulds Meaburn after a decision by the national park authority’s planning committee.

Consent was given in 2016 for the large, detached barn at Brackenslack Lane to be converted into a three-bedroom home.

But the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority said unauthorised works had been done including exterior sandblasting and repointing with pink mortar.

A bid by applicant Daphne Baird to vary conditions and change land use at Snowdrop Barn was refused at the planning committee meeting, and enforcement action approved. Ms Baird did not attend.

Maulds Meaburn resident Judith Fraser told the committee everyone in the village had welcomed the sensitive conversion but the unauthorised works had radically changed the barn’s appearance.

“Every day we are going to be looking at an inappropriate development that is the first thing anyone coming into the national park from the north will see,” she said.

Julie Martin, the YDNPA’s member champion for cultural heritage, said: “I think it’s fair to describe the way this development has taken place as a truly shocking act of vandalism.”

Member Yvonne Peacock said: “It makes a mockery of the planning committee. We’ve got to make sure everybody realises this is wrong, absolutely out of order.”

Member John Blackie said: “It does seem a very, very dramatic breach of planning regulations.”