POSSIBLY the biggest shot in the arm for the Yorkshire tourism industry since Alf Wight created the Herriot phenomenon half a century ago is likely to hit our TV screens next year.

Spectator understands negotiations are at an advanced stage for the production of a 12-part TV series on the Yorkshire Dales, to be screened nationwide at peak-time.

The company behind it is the ITV team based in Leeds which has produced the current series The Lakes, which has been recording 4.2m viewers up against the BBC’s EastEnders on Monday nights.

ITV network chiefs have been so delighted by the success of The Lakes, with its gentle documentary almost Dales Diary style framed with lots of lingering shots of the glorious scenery, that they have been very receptive to the idea of a similar series of half-hour programmes on the Yorkshire Dales.

The Dales is to follow a very similar format to The Lakes, featuring stories about the ordinary, or extraordinary, people that give the area its character. A camera crew is likely to be “embedded” in the area for an extended period following particular people or story lines.

Filming is to start in May and run through the summer with the finished series screened from next March. The production company is hopeful of international sales of the series too, which of course could bring many foreign visitors to God’s own county.

One Dalesman who’s already rather excited about the project, and with good reason, is Wensleydale’s Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, the county’s tourism authority.

It’s the sort of PR campaign a marketeer can only dream of.

Mr Verity is understood to have offered his fullest support to the programme makers.

The timing could not be better. The boost provided by the “staycation”

phenomenon may well have run its course by the time the series is aired next year, and the Herriot effect is gradually losing its potentcy as new generations not familiar with the magic of books, TV series or films come along.