A bizarre video has emerged of a massive golden statue of Chairman Mao appearing in a village in central China, built with £300,000 of funds raised by villagers.

The footage, filmed by a local resident in Kaifeng, Henan Province on Tuesday, shows workers busy working on the scaffolding erected around the near-finished structure.

According to news reports, the statue was designed to be 36.6 metres high, at the cost of almost three million yuan (£300,000) which was collected by several local business owners and some farmers.

Building work started on March 28 2015 and moved into the last stages of construction in December.