The Accessibility Statement for the Waltham Abbey Town Council Website

This statement is in relation to the accessibility of https://www.walthamabbey-tc.gov.uk following a review of the homepage, navigation, pages and links carried out in September 2020.  Samples from the website have been assessed using https://wave.webaim.org/ and by using a screen reading tool.

Pages will be regularly reviewed, tested and updated.  We aim to have outstanding issues resolved by 31 December 2020.

Our Accessibility Statement

Using this website

This website is run and maintained by Waltham Abbey Town Council. Our aim is to make the website as accessible as possible to all users regardless of ability.  Our aim is to ensure our website is as compliant as possible with guidelines and rules laid down by The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and the guidelines laid out by Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1

Our Aims for this website

The website was launched in 2017 and was designed to include an uncomplicated structure with an effective use of colour and contrast.

We aim to ensure that our whole website is accessible to all users by:

  • ensuring users can zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • checking that images realign correctly when zooming in
  • allowing the user to navigate most of the website using only a keyboard
  • ensuring the majority of the content of the site can be accessed using speech recognition software
  • being able to listen to most of this website using a popular screen reader
  • ensuring that all linked pages and hyperlinks work correctly
  • using simple language and avoiding the use of unnecessary jargon and acronyms

Challenges

​We are aware that not all of the website if fully accessible. For example:

  • some of the documents we have published are not fully accessible by a screen reader. These include some PDFs and Word documents
  • it is not possible to easily change font sizes and colours
  • documents provided by other agencies and organisations are not always fully accessible

We aim to :

  • continue to actively improve all areas of our website and regularly test new and existing pages
  • where documents may be provided to us by others we aim to rewrite these where possible or provide online accessible HTML pages as an alternative.

The current legislation does not require accessibility compliance for office file formats published before 23rd September 2018, unless such content is needed for active administrative processes relating to the tasks performed by the public sector body.

If you require further information about any information on our website or you would like to enquire about alternative formats,  please phone 01992 714949 or email the Town Clerk.

If you have problems using this website.

​​If you find any problems with accessing content on this website or believe that we are not meeting the requirements of current regulations regarding accessibility please contact the Town Clerk or phone 01992 714949.

If you are not happy with how we respond to issues you have raised with us about the accessibility of this website then please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for ensuring that websites meet current standards of accessibility.

If you find any difficulties when using accessibility tools or assistive technologies you can find helpful advice and tips from the charity Ability Net​ including advice about adjustments you can make to your computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone to make it easier to use.