Residents frustrated after Hampshire County Council website shuts down for more than 24 hours

RESIDENTS vented their frustration at Hampshire County Council after its website went down for more than 24 hours.

This morning, technical teams were still continuing efforts to resolve the issue, first reported shortly after 8.30am yesterday (Thursday), before HCC announced it was back online shortly after 11am today.

First alerting the public on its Twitter and Facebook pages, the authority said: “Our website is currently unavailable,” it tweeted.

“The issue is being investigated and we're sorry for the inconvenience.”

The messages advised people needing help urgently to email info@hants.gov.uk or call 0300 555 1375.

Those concerned for the welfare of children or adults could call the out-of-hours safeguarding team on 0300 555 1373.

General details about care and support could be found on the Connect To Support Hampshire website at bit.ly/3m46eCW

Some residents took to the comments on HCC’s social media pages to raise concerns about certain issues.

One tweeted: “Why can’t I report a pot hole on your website? When are you going to get this problem resolved?”

HCC replied that urgent highway issues can be reported to its transport and roads team on 0300 555 1388.

Other residents asked how they could book slots at one of Hampshire’s household waste sites and were told they can access the booking site directly at bit.ly/40v3Xjk

Another resident tweeted: “Any idea when this will be resolved? Can’t access my payslip!”

HCC tweeted shortly after 11am this morning: “The issue impacting our website has now been resolved.

“We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

A spokesperson for Hampshire County Council said: “A decision was made to take the website offline as a precautionary measure after our IT monitoring tools alerted us to some suspicious activity that was impacting performance.

"The website was brought back online following completion of our technical checks.”