Aislinn, AdministratorAislinn and her boyfriend Ed, who are both in their 20s, live in a small 2-bedroomed privately rented property in Reeth. They both work - Ed is self employed and owns a cleaning business which operates in and around the Dales and Aislinn is an administrator. Her office is based in Doncaster but she works mainly work from home. Her income is around £16,000 a year.
Asked why affordable housing in the Upper Dales is important to her, Aislinn explains: “I want to stay in Arkengarthdale as it’s where I’ve lived since I was 2 years old so it’s home to me. My parents and some family and friends live there already so we wouldn’t really want to move away and we think it’s a great place to raise a family when the time is right for us.” She goes on: “Homes for sale currently in Arkengarthdale are too expensive for first time buyers. They also very rarely come up for sale and when they do they are generally snatched up within a matter of days by second homeowners or to be turned into holiday cottages. In principal we don’t have an issue with second homeowners and holiday cottage owners however if all the houses eventually go this way you end up with an area which has no community or people living there full time, which causes another problem that then the businesses up in these areas can’t find staff to hire which then means businesses could be forced to close and the whole chain of events carries on from there. “I think these problems have occurred the last few years but 2020 in particular with the pandemic and TV programmes on the Dales it seems to have heightened - when I was young the village was full of children and families and now there’s barely any left at all in the village!” Aislinn believes that ultimately, if things don’t change, she may have to move elsewhere away from family and friends. “The situation just makes me feel sad and frustrated! When I was little like many others in the Dales I dreamed of having a family up there and sending my children to Arkengarthdale school and now the school has closed and been sold off to become another visitor attraction and the housing situation looks bleaker and bleaker for us." “I would like families and young people to get some kind of first refusal on houses to give them a chance to re-start the community - we’d love to live in Arkengarthdale with enough space for us and maybe an extra bedroom or two for future children.” |
“I want to stay in Arkengarthdale - it’s where I’ve lived since I was 2 years old so it’s home to me” |
KenKen, who’s in his 60s, moved to the Upper Dales around 8 years ago and had been renting a house in Langthwaite, Arkengarthdale. Then out of the blue he was given notice to quit. Ken spent a considerable amount of time trying to find alternative rental accommodation, but without success. “I’ve had to move into Wensleydale because there was absolutely nothing available in my local area of Arkengarthdale; I looked, I asked, I put the word round all my mates, because a lot of the stuff gets snapped up really quickly, it’s word of mouth before it’s advertised.”
He goes on: “I was very fortunate to find a place to rent near West Burton, and I’m settling in, but it’s not where I want to live. I went for a walk recently with the grandkids, and there were nice views; but we were walking through meadows, we didn’t get any heights. It wasn’t craggy, it wasn’t wild.” I asked Ken what in particular he’d liked about living in the Upper Dales. He told me: “It’s nice to know folk and it’s nice that folk look out for you; there was one time I wasn’t going in to work on that particular day, and someone came and banged on my door because they thought I’d had an accident. I think flooding in the last few years have been an eye opener for a lot of people who had recently moved into the area, they didn’t realise how much people would look out for each other. “ But Ken feels the Upper Dales are changing for the worse. “A lot of the people who have lived there all their lives feel really let down that there’s nothing for their kids, in their late 20s and 30s and struggling because they’ve got to have somewhere to live and there just isn’t anything.” Ken is also clear about how to improve this worsening housing picture. “We need houses for people to stay in the dale, and we need jobs, and we need transport for people to get to the jobs. If anything’s going to be done, the public will has to be there - if enough people want to make it happen they’ll make it happen.” |
“It’s nice to know folk and it’s nice that folk look out for you.” |
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