QLocal has discovered the reason why the Borough Council website – www.westlancs.gov.uk – went down on Monday.

And it wasn't because it was 'hacked'.

A Borough PR officer told reporter Roger Blaxall this afternoon: "The website became unavailable at 8.30pm on Sunday 15 May when a database server crashed and was fixed early on the next business day.

"West Lancashire Borough Council apologises for any inconvenience this caused people living and working in the borough.

"On Monday morning our Customer Services team were able to assist people with their enquiries while the website was down," he added.