Accessibility Statements

Accessibility Statement - Bellingham Parish Council

Using this website

This website is run by Bellingham Parish Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• zoom in up 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reading (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet (https://memwabilitynetorg.uk/) has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Viewing the website the way you want to

We provide some hints and links in the sections below. Suggestions are offered in good faith for user convenience but please note that plugins and software are used at your own risk. Bellingham Parish Council is not responsible for any issues arising from the use of tools or plugins over which they have no influence or control. Although plugin suggestions are for Chrome, similar (and sometimes the same) plugins exist for other browsers.

Page content reflows to fit the resolution and orientation of your device. The content will also reflow if you zoom-in to the screen: we have tested this up to a zoom level of 300%.

On a laptop/PC browser, you can magnify text either by increasing the font size in your browser settings (or with browser plugins - for example A+ Font SizeChangerLite for Chrome) or using the inbuilt browser zoom function - CTRL + (Windows) or CMD + (Mac). Using a mix of both techniques can give fine-tuned viewing experiences.

On a mobile device get magnification and reflow by changing the browser default font size and default display size in the accessibility settings menu.

Default colour contrasts meet accessibility guidelines on most pages with a few minor exceptions (for example some hyperlinks in headers/footers). You can change the default background colours using browser plugins like HighContrast or ScreenShader.

People using keyboard navigation can easily see where they are on the page because the current tab focus is clearly highlighted in contrasting colours.

Colour is never used as the sole way of communicating information

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website aren't fully accessible:

• you can't modify the line height or spacing of text
• some PDF documents aren't fully accessible to screen reader software
• you can't skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• default colour contrasts meet accessibility guidelines on most pages with a few minor exceptions (for example some links in headers)

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, Word, large print, easy read,

Email - clerk@bellinghamparishcouncil.gov.uk
Telephone - 01434 221197

We'll consider your request and get back to you in within 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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

The Parish Clerk - Email: clerk@bellinghamparishcouncil.gov.uk
Telephone: 01434 221197

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you're not happy with how we respond to your complaint. Contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Bellingham 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.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/) AA standard.

How we tested

Testing was carried out using WAVE, Web Accessibility Plug In and EqualWeb which is presented on each page of this site. 

Accessibility Statement - Spanglefish

This website is built on the Spanglefish content management system. It allows normal browser control over zooming by using the Control or Command keys and plus and minus keys and can be navigated using the tab and enter keys.

The site is created in HTML5, the underlying code is valid and uncomplicated and the website should be fully accessible using screen readers.

However, every website content management system can always be improved - if you wish to make any accessibility suggestions about the underlying site structure contact access@spanglefish.com.

Spanglefish allows site owners to manage almost all aspects of their site. The text content, the use of images, uploaded documents such as PDFs, background and text colours. They can also manage more complex items which may impact on accessibility like javascript and CSS pseudo-elements, embedded video and audio etc. Any issues with accessibility due to such items are the responsibility of the site owner and should be addressed to them directly.