FRAGMENTED and expensive services needed to be pulled together if young people on Exmoor were to be able to find homes in which to live locally.

Problems faced by the younger generation were highlighted in a discussion paper produced for voluntary support group Exmoor Young Voices (EYV) titled ‘Too Many Cooks’.

EYV chairman Will Lock said housing was a fundamental expectation in a 21st-century wealthy democracy, alongside clean water and food.

However, for EYV members living and working in the national park, obtaining housing away from their parental home involved negotiation with most, or all, of a multitude of organisations ranging from the local council and housing associations to finance providers and ecology experts.

Mr Lock said members needed to ‘find the time, money, persistence, and courage, during working hours’ to get anywhere.

Several meetings were usually necessary, along with numerous emails and telephone calls, and multiple documents and references delivered and collected, with additional and unexpected costs.

Mr Lock said EYV recently supported a disabled member to find rented accommodation to meet her particular needs.

“She succeeded,” he said. “But only after 119 emails, the involvement of seven professional advisers, obtaining three professional references, and 12 other document exchanges.

“EYV members and their charity are probably wasting their own and everyone’s time struggling and juggling so many different demands.

“Housing needs to be a one-stop-shop, one overriding, well-staffed, and resourced department of the new Somerset Council.”

Mr Lock said if the new unitary council was saving money then there should be a fund available to use to create a one-stop service.

“The opportunity is there for this new department, with all partners, to design a simple system that is both centralised and more localised by using its central powers to co-ordinate all aspects of housing,” he said.

“The new ‘Somerset Housing’ could also campaign with other counties for larger houses and gardens in rural areas to account for modern life’s demands.

“It is a folly to build smaller, meaner, homes when people and the equipment they need are both increasing.

“Land-wise, we are encouraged to grow some of our own food and help our children play outdoors.”

Mr Lock said that the current system was fragmented, expensive, ineffective, and unwieldy ‘to the point of actively discriminating against all but the brightest and most persistent young people’.

He said: “Our next paper will ask how we ensure equal access for less able young people. In light of our duty to house people.

“It is inefficient to put such a huge administrative burden on to applicants. Instead, we need to simplify, de-clutter, and create a one-stop-shop arrangement that enables our young adults to find the homes they need.”

Mr Lock said it was concerning that Exmoor National Park had the oldest population demographic in England.

It meant there were not enough children to ensure a future for local schools, which in turn meant Exmoor would lose teachers, vets, doctors, dentists, and solicitors, and would not attract new and larger businesses.

Recruitment and retention were already serious problems highlighted recently in the Free Press.

Mr Lock said: “The national park is on the cusp of becoming a geriatric desert, overweighted with second and holiday homes.

“It already has an unnatural, unbalanced population.

“Now, the opportunity is there to plan for a transformative service to be proud of and demonstrate a way forward that might suit the rest of the country.”