THE possibility of the 50-mile long finger of land stretching from Penrith in the North to just outside Lancaster in the south being added to the two national parks either side of it throws up an endless set of important and fascinating issues.

On the one hand it is a little early to speculate to the extent that raises temperatures too far. But on the other hand it is certainly worth being alive to all the potential implications. No one who has been involved in the fight against the speed limit on Windermere, for instance, would argue that it is ever too early to make a case, nor underestimate the strength of purpose of those in the national park authorities, once they have decided to embark on a particular course.

Certainly there are several anomalies about where the two parks end. That the Yorkshire Dales park peters out half way up the lovely Howgills, for example, makes no sense at all, except that this line once formed the boundary of Westmorland, a county that lost any administrative power 30 years ago.

Perhaps more significantly there was no M6 when the parks were created around 50 years ago. So the A6 was seen as the natural boundary, although as Peter Bullard, of the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, points out there is just as much quality wildlife habitat and landscape to the east of the A6 as there is to the west of it.

So the arguments for a review are strong. There are also good reasons to ignore traditional administrative boundaries, as these are always liable to change.

But the terms of reference of the review ordered by the Countryside Agency, need to be carefully thought through.

The impact on house-building, and by association, property prices may well be drastic. Development in South Lakeland and other green belt areas are already restricted by legislation, but having the whole area included in national parks would surely not help the provision of reasonably priced housing for first-time purchasers.

Similarly, it is difficult enough to find ways to satisfy planners when trying to start up industrial developments, without widening the further restrictions on expanding employment opportunities that come along with national park status.

There will be those who view an expanded park as a useful weapon in the fight to keep wind farms off the peaks of Whinash and the like. If wind farms are banned from the parks, and the park is expanded to include Whinash, any decision in the meantime to allow a wind farm there does seem illogical.

It is perhaps the M6 that holds the key to future thinking on joining up the parks. Restricting development along the M6 corridor because it now fell within a national park designation would seem to be too restrictive.

Until now the parks have, quite rightly, been able to have policies which put the landscape and wider environmental concerns first, while areas around the fringes like Kendal have been allowed to develop jobs, housing, education, retail and other planks of a modern standard of living for those not fortunate enough to actually live within the parks. In that way a reasonable balance has been maintained.

To introduce, in effect, a giant park from Cockermouth in the West to Richmond in the East, beautiful as most of it is, would seem to be roping off too big a chunk of Northern Britain as having special protection.

Then there is the whole question of who would take control of the new expanded area. Would one authority cover the enlarged area, or would there be a tug of war between the existing parks over who would absorb the added area?

It is to be hoped that the Countryside Agency, which has written to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales parks authorities to warn of a consultant's commission to investigate the possibilities, understands just what an enormous exercise it has embarked upon.