Accessibility statement for South Lakeland District Council
Last Updated: 3 April 2024
This accessibility statement applies to www.southlakeland.gov.uk.
This website is run by South Lakeland District Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.
For example, that means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 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 reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also 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.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- some pages and document attachments are not written in plain English
- some videos have no accessible subtitles/cc or transcript
We will update the statement when issues are fixed or when we expect them to be fixed.
Feedback and contact information
If you need any information on this website in a different format, you can contact us:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.
Call or email us for directions if you cannot view the map on our offices contact details.
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, you can let us know on our website feedback form.
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
Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.
Find out how to contact us.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
South Lakeland District 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:
- you cannot navigate headers on our 'Collection calendar' page using screen reader
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- some pages and document attachments are not written in plain English
- some videos don't have accessible subtitles
We will update the statement when issues are fixed or when we expect them to be fixed.
Non-compliance with accessibility regulations
There are some known accessibility issues with our website identified in our most recent accessibility audit completed November 2022, site last tested November 2022:
- fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1. There were two h1’s on the ‘Collection calendar web page’, making the page difficult to navigate using a screen reader. This item was fixed December 2022
- line height below minimum value. Fails WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing (Level AA): In content implemented using markup languages that support the following text style properties, no loss of content or functionality occurs by setting all of the following and by changing no other style property. This item is fixed
- text clipped when resized – Fails WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.4 Resize text (Level AA): Except for captions and images of text, text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200 percent without loss of content or functionality. This item is fixed.
- our site map scrolls in two dimensions on small screens. Fails WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.10 Reflow (Level AA): Content can be presented without loss of information or functionality, and without requiring scrolling in two dimensions. We aim to fix this by February 2022 - Fixed December 2021.
- content should be written as clearly and as simply as possible. In some areas, content is ‘fairly difficult to read’ based on the Flesch Reading Ease score. This fails Success Criterion 3.1.5. We aim to continuously review and update all website content. All new content should conform to a ‘standard’ level of reading ease or higher.
- tab navigation skipped/did not highlight Twitter, Facebook and Email icons in the website footer. Appeared to highlight an empty tag to the right of these images. Fails Success Criterion 2.4.3 Focus Order (Level A): If a Web page can be navigated sequentially and the navigation sequences affect meaning or operation, focusable components receive focus in an order that preserves meaning and operability. We aim to fix this by May 2022 - Fixed December 2021.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
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 December 2025, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
The Public Sector Body Accessibility Regulations 2018 do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish should meet accessibility standards.
Live video
Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions, live).
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 18 May 2020. It was last reviewed on 18 November 2022.
The website was last tested on 18 November 2022. The test was carried out by Southlakeland District Council.
We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:
- automated testing, Siteimprove accessibility checker crawls 100% of our web pages weekly
- manual testing, we check a representative sample pages of from the busiest areas of our site and the home page