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A Teesside council's website is down after it suffered a 'cyber-attack'.

Redcar and Cleveland Council says it is investigating after the attack and prioritising providing essential services.

The council's website is believed to have been offline since Sunday, and currently displays an error message for those trying to log on.

A spokesperson for the authority said: "We are investigating what appears to be a cyber-attack on the council's IT servers.

"We are currently working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible, alongside the relevant authorities.

"Our priority remains our frontline services and these have continued as usual today."

The authority has passed details to Cleveland Police, and the force has confirmed it's received a report.

The reason for the attack is currently unclear, but cyber attacks are typically launched to access data, functions or other restricted areas of a computer system.

Council websites are typically used by members of the public to pay council tax, report problems or view planning and licensing applications.

Those contacting the authority on Monday may have found it more difficult as phone and email systems are working on a reduced capacity.

A spokesperson for the council continued: "We currently have limited capacity for phone calls and emails and we are prioritising urgent matters.

"There may be a slight delay in dealing with non-urgent matters and, at present, our website remains down.

"We are progressing work to restore our IT services and we are confident we can continue to provide our key services to the public."