The Moorcock Inn, Garsdale: Planners decide they can't force landlady of 18th-century Yorkshire coaching inn to turn it back into a pub - but order tearoom's closure

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has invoked enforcement powers which require Joanne Cox to cease using The Moorcock Inn at Garsdale Head as a tearoom and her own permanent residence – but she does not have to return it to trading as a public house.

Mrs Cox closed The Moorcock last year, claiming it was unviable as a business, but began building work to convert it into a dwelling and small cafe without planning permission.

An officers’ report before the committee met this week recommended that Mrs Cox be ordered to restore the public bar, but it was decided at the meeting following legal advice that she could not be legally required to re-open it.

However, as her retrospective planning application was refused, she must stop using the building as a tearoom and house and remove fixtures and fittings associated with both functions.

Mrs Cox also made new submissions regarding the pub’s viabilty, arguing that she struggled to recruit staff, that many licensed premises faced similar downturns in trade and that despite the building standing since the 1740s, the interiors did not contain original features as it was largely rebuilt following a fire in the 1970s that killed the licensees at the time.

The meeting report states: “The solicitor has made an amendment to the recommended enforcement action, omitting references to reinstating the use,

reinstating pub signage, and removal of tearoom signage. The amended recommendation is as follows:-

“Given the harm outlined in the refusal reasons, it is advised that it is expedient to take enforcement action, and that the authority’s solicitor be authorised to secure cessation of the use of the manager’s accommodation as a tearoom and holiday let; cessation of use of the main Moorcock Inn as a dwellinghouse; removal of tearoom and holiday let fixtures and fittings, including from external land; removal all fixtures and fittings associated with use as a dwelling house from the bar and public areas in the main Moorcock Inn, and also removal of partition walls and new staircase.”

If Mrs Cox does not comply with the action within six months, she could face prosecution.

Two further objections were received regarding the redevelopment, including a letter from Friends of the Dales, who raised concerns about the loss of a community facility. The Settle to Carlisle Railway Trust and Friends of the Settle and Carlislie Line also opposed the scheme, highlighting the pub’s role in the heritage of the railway. Garsdale Station is used by visitors and the inn was a haunt of the navvy labourers who built the line in the 1860s.

In response, Mrs Cox said that when she bought The Moorcock in 2016, it had been for sale for several years with little interest despite the price being reduced.

She commented that the local community had been given ‘ample time’ to express interest in buying the building themselves. She had been told when she made enquiries in 2022 that it was ‘unlikely’ to sell and believed she should be given support to diversify her business instead.