BBC apologises for 'wrong' estate footage

The BBC has apologised after a daytime show about a housing estate in Bristol featured footage shot in a different area of the city.

The BBC One programme, titled The Estate We're In, deals with social issues and disruption on the Lawrence Weston Estate in Bristol.

Produced by Two Four Productions, the show features social campaigner Silla Carron trying to rebuild the sense of community on Lawrence Weston.

However, PC Shaun Underwood, who appeared on the programme, said that a sequence of footage was actually shot knowingly in a different area of Bristol.

He said that the production crew got "a bit bored" while trying to capture anti-social behaviour on the Lawrence Weston and decided to look elsewhere.

"I then dropped them off at Southmead police station. They knew they weren't in Lawrence Weston because I told them on the night I was going to drop them off with another unit," he said.

"They said they, 'Weren't getting what they wanted' in Lawrence Weston so they wanted to go outside [the area]."

The BBC has apologised for the problem, which it said it takes "very seriously". A spokeswoman said: "We are disappointed to learn that it appears this footage filmed by Two Four Productions was not in fact filmed on the Lawrence Weston Estate.

"The production company has given us a guarantee that there are no other instances such as this in the series, and we have reminded them that everything delivered to the BBC must comply with the BBC's editorial guidelines."

Two Four spokesman Tim Jackman also apologised for the situation and said that it was never the company's intention to mislead viewers with the footage.

"It has now been brought to our attention that some of the shots filmed for the programme that evening while on patrol were from a neighbouring area and we accept that the footage should not have been included in the programme," he said.