YOU will not find water anywhere that is purer than Yorkshire water.

Yorkshire's tap water is almost 100pc perfect, according to a report issued this week by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

In its annual report, the water quality watchdog reveals that last year more than a quarter-of-a-million samples taken from water treatment works, service reservoirs and water mains met 99.89 per cent of all the stringent standards required under European and UK law.

Over the last 12 months, Yorkshire Water has spent tens of millions of pounds renovating 573km of water mains, either by replacing or relining them and, by March 2010, the total length of underground water pipes refurbished will be more than 4,000km.

Two schemes to improve drinking water quality are currently underway in Bradford and Lower Wensleydale. The water company is investing £21m in Bradford by upgrading 120km of city centre water mains. This work, which is taking three years to complete, will complement a major improvement programme at Chellow Heights water treatment works to improve the quality of the city's drinking water further.

In Lower Wensleydale, a further £2.5m is being invested upgrading 80km of mains in and around Bedale.

Yorkshire Water's water business unit director Chuck Firlotte said: "Yorkshire tap water is a quality product and having 99.89 per cent of 266,000 samples passing these stringent tests is, I think, a very good result. The bottled water industry isn't monitored as rigorously as we are and this shows we have a product of extremely high quality. And at less than 0.006p a litre it is extremely good value for money too."

Also this week, a Yorkshire Water public relations campaign which found that six out of ten people could not taste the difference between tap water and bottled water, has won a national industry award.

Tap V Cap, a taste test to highlight the quality of the county's water, won the Cream of the Regions award at the Institute of Public Relations awards in London.

Yorkshire Water public relations advisor Craig Spence said: "This is a major achievement for the company. Tap V Cap was a bold shift in communications for Yorkshire Water and proved that we could go head-to-head with the consumer bottled water industry and win."