Yorkshire has much more to offer than Yorkshire puddings, flat caps and whippets according to some of the region's best-known celebrities.

A Leeds-based public relations company has won £300,000 from Yorkshire Forward to market the county's image to the rest of Britain and the world, but those who are Yorkshire born and bred say the county sells itself.

Sir Jimmy Savile, who has lived in the North all his life and has flats in Scarborough and Leeds, said: "I congratulate the public relations company on getting £300,000 for nothing. Yorkshire doesn't need anything as long as it has its people.

"We don't want too many people to know about it because the whole world would want to come and live here. Keep Yorkshire for Yorkshire people, I say."

Meanwhile Richard Whiteley, Countdown presenter and Mayor of Wetwang, said more Yorkshire accents on the radio and television would do the county some good.

He said: "I'm sick and tired of the patronising attitudes of people in the South to the people of Yorkshire.

"I've hardly ever seen a whippet or a flat cap, which are in fact the uniform of the middle class country people.

"I'm also sick and tired of the patronising attitude of people in the South to northern accents and the stick given to the likes of John Prescott and William Hague.

"There are five million people living in Yorkshire so I think it has the right to be taken far more seriously. But I think people who live in Yorkshire know very well its strengths." Leeds-based consultant Out-Think has been awarded the contract to come up with a logo and booklet to market the region.

Theresa Lindsay, head of communications at Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency which along with the Yorkshire Tourist Board has awarded the contract, said: "We want to capitalise on the fact that Leeds is the biggest financial and legal centre outside London, that Harrogate has 180 restaurants, that Alan Ayckbourn's plays premier in Scarborough long before they reach the West End, and that our countryside is as good as anywhere in the world."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.