TOURISTS looking for the exact centre of Britain were today urged to keep travelling to the Ribble Valley, not a Northumberland town which has claimed the honour.

After the Lancashire Evening Telegraph reported that posh department store Harrods was offering a square metre of land from the centre of Britain - outside Dunsop Bridge - business leaders in the town of Haltwhistle, Northumberland, wrote to Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed with details of their alternative claim.

Today it was revealed the Harrods competition is to go ahead as planned, and the boss of a Dunsop Bridge garage appealed to visitors to carry on visiting the 'true' centre.

David Leedham, of Leedham's garage, added: "Tourists should really come here, rather than go there, and people in the area will stand by it."

For years the accepted geographical centre of Britain has been a field near Dunsop Bridge, after Ordnance Survey studies picked the site. Dunsop Bridge itself has an official commemorative BT phonebox.

But the town of Haltwhistle now features signs declaring it as the centre, and it even has a Centre of Britain Hotel.

The debate exists because of the method used to judge the centre of Britain. Ordnance Survey uses a computer programme to calculate at what point a computer 'model' of the country would balance on a pinhead.

But Britain is constantly changing. Even waves on the coastlines alter its shape - and therefore the centre. Ordnance Survey calculates the centre, including Britain and its associated islands. Without the islands being taken into account, the centre could move again. Haltwhistle's claim is based on a straight line being drawn from the northernmost tip of Britain, at the Orkney Islands, to the Portland Bill in Dorset in the south. Haltwhislte lies at the centre of this line.

Landlord of the Centre of Britain Hotel, David Taylor, has written to Mr Al Fayed to ask him to reconsider the offer.

Mr Taylor said: "When we saw that he was offering this prize we thought he has been a little bit badly advised, and drew his attention to Haltwhistle's claim to be the centre.

"Haltwhistle has adopted this about 12 years ago and has large signs at the entrance to the town. This was a rundown town a few years ago and it has pulled itself up by the bootstraps."

Today the Ordnance Survey said there were several methods to find the centre of Britain, and it had made clear to Harrods that other ways existed too. But competition organisers said they stand by their choice.

A spokesman for United Utilities, owners of the land on which the centre lies, said: "Where the centre of Britain is is the subject of a long-standing debate, but we are confident that The Ordnance Survey is a definitive source of information."