ANGRY users have criticised Redbridge's much-heralded new website after it crashed for 48 hours shortly after the New Year.

Residents were left without so much as an error message when trying to use Redbridge i on January 2 and 3.

The news comes only months after the site won high praise from the Audit Commission for its interactive features.

Mark Mason, of Headley Drive in Gants Hill, who runs the Redbridge Forum, said: “The whole website was completely dead and unobtainable. In our browsers we got a timed out message.

“Not only was it down for practically 48 hours but there has been no apology or explanation on the website about why this occurred in the first place, and there was no prior announcement.

“I have had no response from the web manager or the leader of the council to my email of Sunday morning.

“It miraculously came back online on Sunday evening, after almost 48 hours of down-time with no message, jut a blank error page.”

Mr Mason also criticised the new interactive elements of the site, saying their were not helpful to residents.

“Both the "Neighbourhood Matters" and the "Ask My Neighbour" features only allow us to have discussions with people up to 1 measly kilometre away from your postcode. It doesn't allow cross-borough conversations to take place.

“The forum facility does not allow responsible citizens to create their own forum topics for discussion like they used to be able to. These topics are chosen only by the Redbridge i web manager. The result is an actively stifled community.

“We are unable to post topics and threads of our own choosing, and have to beg for topics that we want on the forum. That's not a forum but a dictatorship."

A Redbridge Council spokesman said: "The problem was due to a computer hardware failure which affected communication networks. We are sorry if this temporary fault caused problems for Redbridge i users.

"The fault was fixed by Council technicians who worked over the weekend to resolve the problem. The Council will be implementing further steps to improve resilience over the coming weeks."

“The ‘MyNeighbourhood’ features on Redbridge i have been developed to help people talk to their neighbours and find out about services, news and events in their immediate area. For example, residents can ask their neighbours for local restaurant recommendations or advice on organising local activities.

"These localised features are complemented by online forums which allow borough-wide discussions to take place. These forums focus on major community issues where the Council or its partners would like to better understand residents’ views or get suggestions for service improvements. A recent example is the NHS proposals that could affect King George’s hospital.”