Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for Harberton Parish Council

This accessibility statement applies to www.harbertonparishcouncil.org.uk, which includes the site www.harbertonparishcouncil.org.uk/hnp

The website is run by Harberton Parish Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. We’ve made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

We have made available a Free Website Accessibility Widget by Userway to allow us to improve compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA standard). By using this accessibility menu you should be able to:

  • Increase the contrast of the website
  • Increase text space
  • Increase font size
  • Change font
  • Use keyboard navigation
  • Use an inbuilt screen reader
  • Highlight links
  • View the page structure
  • Increase the size of the cursor and use a reading guide.

The website accessibility menu can be enabled by clicking the accessibility menu icon. This appears at the top right of each page. After triggering the accessibility menu, please wait a moment for the accessibility menu to load in its entirety.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • you cannot modify the line height of text
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
  • There are some broken or suspicious worded links
  • There is a picture gallery within the site that does not include alternative text descriptions

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 clerk@harbertonparishcouncil.org.uk
  • call 0845 557 8469

We will consider your request and get back to you in 14 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact the Clerk:

  • email clerk@harbertonparishcouncil.org.uk
  • call 0845 557 8469

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’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

You can telephone the clerk on 0845 557 8469. We do not provide a text relay service for people who are D/deal, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

We do not have offices, but you are welcome to attend our public meetings. Contact for individual councillors can be found here: https://www.harbertonparishcouncil.org/people/

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Harberton Parish 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

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Low contrast

Some of the design features within the website template used have very low contrast between the foreground and background colours, particularly within the ‘calendar’ and ‘events’ features that appear on each page. Adequate contrast is necessary for all users, especially users with low vision. We are seeking to increase the contrast of these specific areas in September 2020. In the meantime, the contrast can be improved by using the ‘Accessibility’ menu available in the top right hand corner of the screen.

Suspicious link texts and broken links in the Harberton Neighbourhoood Plan site

The Harberton Neighbourhood Plan area of the site contains a number of broken links and some of the link texts are written with the use of extraneous text and that do not always make sense out of context. The Neighbourhood Plan section of the site is being shut down and all content transferred to the main Parish Council site. It is likely that this will be undertaken in September 2020.

Missing alternative text

Generally the Parish Council does not use images on the website. There is however a gallery of images from the Neighbourhood Planning Consultation that are missing alternative text descriptions. Without alternative text, the content will not be available to screen reader users or when the image is unavailable. This section of the Parish Council website will be taken offline in September 2020.

Navigation and accessing information

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word 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. By September 2020, 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’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix [example of non-essential document].

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

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 8th September 2020. It will be reviewed annually.

This website was last tested on 29th June 2020. We carried out our own testing using the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. We started by testing the home page, then worked through the whole site, testing each page.