Birmingham City Council brochure shows skyline from Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham City Council was miles off when it printed leaflets showing its skyline – an entire continent off, in fact.

The Brummie council accidentally printed an image of its namesake city of Birmingham, Alabama in brochures praising residents for recycling.

The surprising gaffe came to light when a resident who received one of the 720,000 brochures failed to recognise any of the buildings photographed in it.

Jon Cooper said he Googled America’s Birmingham and matched up the two cities – then called his local Brummie council.

He told the BBC: “I had a really close look and didn’t recognise any building that I know from Birmingham so I though there’s something wrong here.

“I’m a regular visitor to the US and I thought maybe it looked a little bit like a US city. I thought, well actually there’s a Birmingham in America.

“So I got on Google and found a picture of the downtown area of Birmingham, Alabama and, hey presto, there it was.”

The council first denied its screw-up, saying it was meant to be a generic skyline to symbolise an urban area.

It has now accepted the wrong photo was used but countered that the text and message in the leaflet was spot-on, which was most important.