Yorkshire Water says a controversial video created for the company's social media channels was shared by mistake. 

The Bradford-based water company faced heavy criticism after a new promotional video included stock footage of Herefordshire countryside and images reportedly taken in a Russian bar.

Researchers at BBC Breakfast also claimed the video featured footage of a man driving in a left-hand drive car in Ukraine.

The advert was a promotion for Yorkshire Water's campaign to encourage customers to save more water.

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water said the video has since been taken down.

Yorkshire Water claimed the video was "shared before we’d had chance to do our normal checks on it".

The spokesperson said: “We recently shared a short teaser video for our new ‘word of mouth’ social media campaign to promote water saving.

"Unfortunately, it was shared before we’d had chance to do our normal checks on it and the stock footage that had been used didn’t capture the spirit of Yorkshire.

"Once we were aware of the mistake we immediately took the video down. The ‘word of mouth’ video series all contain Yorkshire residents talking about their water saving tips, and footage of our wonderful county.”