From Thursday the Lake District National Park is marketing itself as "England's finest landscape".

But officials from the Yorkshire Dales National Park claim the move breaches a so-called gentlemen's agreement over using the phrase.

Bosses in the Lakes have been accused of employing "cappuccino-sipping marketing executives".

Yorkshire Dales: angry at Lakes' marketing

Michael Bentley, chairman of the Lake District National Park, said: "We felt that England's finest landscape is what most of our members and staff feel is an appropriate description of this wonderful piece of country.

"It isn't a competition against other national parks.

"It has been postured in the past that one of the other parks was England's premier national park."

Mr Bentley says 14 million people visit the Lake District every year and spend £700m.

He says the new marketing campaign is aimed at capitalising on the area's already massive popularity.

But Andrew Osborne of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, said: "This does leave the impression that some cappuccino-sipping marketing executives are jetting into the Lake District for some high-powered meeting.

"Anyone who has been to the Yorkshire Dales knows that this landscape is the best in the country.

"The landscape speaks for itself. Let people come to an area and judge for themselves without having a marketing message shoved down their throats."