A billboard for a dating website solely for white people has appeared by a roadside in Utah.

The controversial site - called 'where white people meet' - also defaults to heterosexual pairings when browsing.

This is despite the website - which has a £4 joining fee - claiming to believe 'all people, regardless of race, creed, color or religion deserve to be happy'.

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The billboard in West Valley City, Utah, for the controversial dating website that targets only white people

The advert - which shows a grinning white man with his arms wrapped around an equally smiley white female - has been criticised for its exclusionary views.

Kayla Lemmon told Fox 13 News she is opposed to the idea of dating sites targeting a single race.

She said: 'I have a lot of friends who are biracial couples and they're in love and they're happy.

'I don't think we should have a dating site with only one race. I think it excludes someone who could be your soul mate and is a different color than you.'

Michelle Dessau added: 'I just feel we should be past that whole mindset of staying within our own race and segregation pretty much.''

The website homepage has a picture of a white man and woman linking arms and grinning for the camera

NAACP Salt Lake branch President Jeanetta Williams admitted she found the billboard 'odd'.

She told the Salt Lake Tribune: 'I just thought it was kind of strange they would put it in Utah. A large population here is white. So you're going to put up billboards here so you can meet other white singles? Every day you can meet white singles.

'If it were some type of a hate group that was putting these billboards up, we would take a closer look at the actual target. But here we're seeing other advertisements for [dating services for] black singles, for LDS singles.'

On their website, the unidentified founder writes: 'People ask all the time "Why White People Meet"? I always say, "why not?" Just about every other race, religion and walk of life have dating websites.

'Our intentions in creating this dating website were never meant to be racist or biased in any way. In fact, my personal views are those of tolerance, love, acceptance and understanding.'

'We want our dating forum to be simple and inexpensive with the ability to connect like minded people in a non discriminatory fashion.

'We believe that finding your perfect partner, your soul mate is one of the best ways, as humans, to obtain happiness. Furthermore we believe that all men are created equal (the word men stands for a species, not gender).

'We believe that all people, regardless of race, creed, color or religion deserve to be happy and that no one should go through life alone.'