IT has been a week when Yorkshire has proclaimed its regional identity from the rooftops. When the Campaign for Yorkshire launched its crusade for 'home rule' on Wednesday, it sparked debate from Sheffield to Stokesley.

If our telephone poll is representative, opinion about a Yorkshire assembly is fairly evenly divided. Readers voted in favour of following in the path of Scottish and Welsh devolution - but only by 25 votes.

That is because there are good arguments both for and against our own parliament. Westminster can seem a long way away at times.

But a Yorkshire assembly could only work if it replaced, rather than added to, our burgeoning regional bureaucracy.

If the idea of home rule stirred feelings of local pride, the news that a Yorkshire version of Monopoly is on the cards will have us puffing out our chests still further. However, the new board game will also prompt a whole new set of arguments - about which landmarks should be included.

There are plenty of obvious places in the North Riding that the makers should consider. Instead of Mayfair, how about York Minster? That is worth £400 of anybody's money.

Unfortunately, the game will come too late for York Waterworks, but the newly expanded Yorkshire Water would have to be one of the utilities included.

Instead of being sent to jail, the contestants could face the far scarier prospect of spending a few moves stranded in York Dungeon.

Walmgate is York's very own Fleet Street, so that is another square allocated. And the Civic Trust will argue that its plans for a new-look St Helen's Square, complete with central statue, would more than match Lord Nelson's Trafalgar Square.

There are only two problems we can foresee. Firstly, which street will be given the wooden spoon, and replace Monopoly's cheapest area, Old Kent Road?

And secondly, what can we do with the Free Parking square? There is no such thing in Yorkshire...

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