LIV (Liverpool City Council) scraper failing — ModGov endpoint redirecting to error page

[symroe]

Error (2026-06-11)

HTTP 503 Service Unavailable

Investigation

The https://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgWebService.asmx/GetCouncillorsByWard endpoint returns HTTP 302 redirecting to https://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgError.aspx. This means the ModGov application itself is returning an error page rather than councillor data.

HTTP/2 302
location: https://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgError.aspx
server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0

The ModGov web service is up at the TCP/TLS level but the application layer is returning an error — this is a server-side issue, not a network or certificate problem.

Fix patterns ruled out

1. HTTPS migration — already HTTPS
2. verify_requests = False — server responds fine; not a cert issue
3. http_lib = "playwright" — 302 → error page; application is broken, not a JS challenge
4. URL changes — the main Liverpool website still links to councillors.liverpool.gov.uk

What needs to happen

Check whether councillors.liverpool.gov.uk is temporarily experiencing an application error or whether Liverpool has migrated to a new ModGov instance or a different CMS. If Liverpool has moved, the scraper needs updating with the new URL and potentially new selectors.