Red-faced bus bosses in Leeds have been forced to apologise for a "horrible fish smell" that has engulfed one of its stations leaving passengers disgusted.

Leeds City Bus Station is a major transport hub that is meant to be a welcoming place for travellers to arrive coming from all over the country.

But for at least 10 days a bizarre smell described by some as "like fish" and by others as similar to if "cows lived there" has been wafting around the concourse.

The BBC reports West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), responsible for running the bus station, said the cause of the smell was under investigation.

It's not the first time the West Yorkshire city has been plagued by a pong, in September LeedsLive reported residents said the air "smelled like poo" after an unusual foul stench spread over the area.

Commenting on the latest miasma to strike the city, bus passenger and maths and physics student Tobias Cannon, 19, told the BBC: "I walked in and was like, oh my days. It's like fish. I don't know what that's all about."

Another passenger told the broadcaster: "It smells like there are cows in there."

And Has Samin, 32, said he was shocked at the odour when he got off a coach after having travelled from London to Leeds. He said: "It's very bad, very bad.

"I was confused because I have never smelt anything like that."

A spokesperson for WYCA said it was "working with partners and contractors to investigate the problem".

On September 6 this year scores of Leeds residents took to social media to complain about an unusual smell in the city.

In the LeedsPlace Facebook group, one man asked “Anyone know why it stinks everywhere?”, sparking 60 fellow Leeds residents to leave on the post, agreeing that they had also noticed an unpleasant odour.

One replied: “Noticed that today myself in LS15,” and another said: “Probably street drains. Everywhere outside smelled of dog**** earlier.”

Someone else wrote: “Omg literally … poo everywhere .. LS18, 6 and 17,” and finally one pet owner commented: “I was upstairs thought the dog had a poo in the kitchen.”