Accessibility Statement For Ludgershall Town Council

Ludgershall Town Council is committed to providing a website that is accessible to all people, regardless of technology or ability.  This website has been designed to work with all current versions of the most popular desktop browsers.  The site is also ‘responsive’ which means that it adapts to the size of the device you are using to view the website on (mobile phone, tablet etc.).

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you can:

• Contrast & colour variations
• Font resize
• Remove styles and animations
• Underline and highlight links
• Focus user’s attention on content with Lights Off mode
• Dark & Light sidebar themes

Help changing the appearance of websites

The following resources will help you modify your own browser and operating system preferences to suit your own needs:

• Advice from the BBC showing users how to make full use of accessibility settings in browsers and operating systems.
• Advice for Microsoft users
• Advice for Apple users
• Advice for Linux users

For more information on assistive technology (screen enlargers, screen readers, speech recognition systems, speech synthesizers, refreshable Braille displays, Braille embossers, talking word processors, large-print) for the visually impaired please visit the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) website.  The British Dyslexia Association website has information about accessibility issues people with Dyslexia may encounter.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

    email info@ludgeshall-tc.gov.uk or call 01264 391629

We will consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact Ludgershall Town Council, as above.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Ludgershall Town Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

There are the following issues with the website.

• E866 [WCAG21 1.1.1/1.3.1/3.3.2/4.1.2 (A)] User interface controls without a label should have an accessible name
• E870 [WCAG21 2.4.2 (A)] Add a concise, meaningful <title> tag to the page to describe it
• E879 [WCAG21 1.3.1 (A)] Unique accessible name required.
• E908 [WCAG21 2.5.3 (A)] The accessible name must contain the visible label text
• E960 [WCAG21 4.1.2 (A)] Do not use role=presentation|none or aria-hidden=true on a focusable element
• P871 [WCAG21 1.1.1/2.4.4 (A)] Link text is missing
• P883 [WCAG21 1.3.1 (A)] Nest headings properly (H1 > H2 > H3)
• P888 [WCAG21 1.1.1 (A)] Use ‘alt’ text for short descriptions
• P892 [WCAG21 1.3.1 (A)] Use CSS for presentation effects, use <em> or <strong> for emphasis
• P908 [WCAG21 1.3.1 (A)] Do not insert content using CSS
• E910 – [WCAG21 1.4.4 (AA)] Use relative rather than absolute units
• E913 [WCAG21 2.4.6 (AA)] Form control labels must be unique
• E914 [WCAG21 2.4.7 (AA)] Do not remove the visual focus indicator or render it invisible

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add text alternatives for all images by January 2021.

When we publish new content, we’ll make sure our use of images meet accessibility standards.

Disproportionate Burden

Navigation and accessing information

There is no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).  We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with background templating of the website. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment likely to be over the next 12 months.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.  Legacy content will be re-edited where necessary as it is revised.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so adhere to many of the available standards and guidelines.

Whilst Ludgershall Town Council strives to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so in all areas of the website.

We are continually seeking out solutions that will bring all areas of the site up to the same level of overall accessibility. In the meantime, should you experience any difficulty in accessing the website, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This website was last tested on 23^rd September 2020.

The test was carried out Hightrees Organisation Limited.

Testing was performed on 500 pages using the Total Validator Tool.

This statement was prepared on 23^rd September 2020 and will be reviewed annually.