VISITORS were left disappointed yesterday when they arrived at the i360 site to discover it was closed.

Bosses at the attraction, which got stuck twice last week trapping almost 200 tourists inside on Thursday and again on Sunday, said technicians were on-site carrying out checks. We revealed last night how it would remain closed today.

The viewing tower offered its apologies and a refund to customers on its website and on social media, and CEO Eleanor Harris said ticket holders had been informed of the closure.

But The Argus found many frustrated customers outside the toll booth claiming they had not been contacted and had checked the website before travelling but could not see any notification.

Gordon Barnett and Valerie Burley had come 300 miles south from Piercebridge in County Durham for a week so Gordon could show his partner the sights around Tunbridge Wells where he grew up.

They took a day trip from Kent hoping to go on the i360 but found it was closed.

Mr Barnett, 68, said: “It’s such a waste of time, we came to Brighton specifically to go up the i360.

“The staff at the booth said they were closed. We said ‘why?’ and they said they’d had a little glitch.”

Neither of the attraction’s two official press spokeswoman or architects David Marks and Julia Barfield were available for comment yesterday.

When the Argus contacted Ms Harris she refused to answer any specific questions - including when the attraction would re-open.

In pre-launch publicity, the i360 said in event of a problem it could use gravity and the manual brake to return the pod to ground, but she would not say why this system has not been put into practice.

Meanwhile, the question: "Could the pod get stuck?" - which had been asked so often that it featured on the FAQ section of the i360s website - had been removed.

Wynne Waterworth and her ten University of the Third Age friends, who had arranged a day out to visit Brighton’ newest attraction, were among other disappointed customers.

Mrs Waterworth, 71, said: “I saw on Sunday night on TV that there was a problem so I looked on their website this morning before we set off and there was nothing on the site about a problem. It was as if everything was okay.

“The thing that annoys me is we’ve organised all this and we’ve brought a lot of people and there wasn’t any way to find out it was closed.”

Her friend Elizabeth O’Connor, 84, said: “They’ve really wasted our time. It was very bad customer service.”

Tracy Harrop, 40, was visiting the city with her parents after a wedding in the city.

She said she was disappointed but said they had already received a refund.

Her father Brian, 63, added: “It’s still bad customer service though, because we booked weeks ago and we haven’t had an email.”

Jo Hanslip, 43, had come down from St Albans to spend some time with her mother Diane who lives near Bognor.

Mrs Hanslip said: “We hadn’t booked tickets but we were told we didn’t need to. It’s disappointing, we’ve come into Brighton just for this.”