A LANGCLIFFE man says he has been left homeless and without a business after an enforcement notice to remove the kitchen and bathroom, as well as exterior decking and fence was placed on his home.

Ian McKenna, 56, who has health issues, has to move out of his bungalow, on the site of the Old Dairy, Cowside, by February 2021.

He appealed against the notice issued by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority but it was dismissed earlier this month.

He said he refutes the enforcement notice issued on May 14, 2019, because he has been living and working from the premises for more than four years, which he says makes such a notice unlawful, and has sworn affidavits to back him up.

Mr McKenna said a series of catastrophic events led him to fail to apply for a certificate of lawfulness after he was first threatened with enforcement action.

He said there are two issues at his home. One is a kennel and whelping building which was refused a retrospective application in April.

The other issue is his argument to remain in his home.

Mr McKenna has been living at Cowside for 20 years but for the past decade has been estranged from his wife and living in the bungalow on the site of the former dairy, adjacent to the family home.

Around 10 years ago a bathroom showroom business he ran with his brother-in-law in Settle burnt down and he was left financially crippled. He successfully applied for permission to put a temporary bathroom showroom in the old diary. It was retrospective because he had already moved in.

“In 2012 a 7.5 tonne wagon slid on ice and crashed into the showroom demolishing two thirds of it. I rebuilt it on the same footprint but never applied to renew temporary permission because I was only replacing what was there. I needed to live on the premises to be near my son and daughter,” he said.

In 2013 he had to have a 10-hour operation. He moved back to the family home to convalesce for six months and a friend of a family member moved in to continue the tenancy. Around 2016 his estranged wife’s elderly parents were moved into the family home and Mr McKenna cared for them while his wife, a deputy headteacher in Lancashire, went to work. When his father-in-law died his mother-in-law became frail and moved into the bungalow when Mr McKenna also cared for her until she died after around a year.

Mr McKenna said that is was around Christmas 2018 while his mother-in-law was receiving palliative care that the YDNPA emailed him to say enforcement action was being taken. He got an architect to draw up a certificate of lawfulness but it was not produced in time and a notice was issued.

Mr McKenna, who is waiting to have a hip replacement operation, said he feels aggrieved that there had been a catalogue of events which prevented him from taking the case forward. He says he is going to seek legal advice regarding the seven-year rule and will likely make a retrospective application for permission to live at the premises.

He said: “At the moment I am in limbo. I have written to my MP Julian Smith while I decide how to take this forward.”