Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to www.ribblevalley.gov.uk.

This website is run by Ribble Valley Borough 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

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

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

How accessible this website is

We have listed areas of the site that we know are not fully accessible:

  • you cannot modify the line height
  • some pages and documents are not clearly written
  • some images do not have good alternative text
  • some buttons are not correctly identified
  • many PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • many PDF documents cannot be navigated by keyboard
  • when using a keyboard it is not obvious where the focus is

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days. If you cannot view the map on our ‘Location’ page, contact us for directions.

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:

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)

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Ribble Valley Borough 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, due to the areas listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Font size and line spacing

Some text blocks do not reflow content correctly without overlapping. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12 (text spacing). We plan to ensure the text content can be reflowed correctly by June 2021.

Tabbing Order

Throughout the website, the tabbing order either does not operate or it operates in a way that does not follow logical relationships and sequences in the content. This fails Success Criterion 2.4.3 (Focus Order) and Success Criterion 2.1.1. We plan to ensure that our website is accessible for those who rely on an operable tabbing order by June 2021.

Readability

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 review all website content by. All new content will conform to a ‘standard’ level of reading ease or higher. There are pages or documents, such as planning documents and council reports, where complex or technical language often necessary and used.

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).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.

We aim to resolve these issues as part the upgrade and redesign of the website.

Disproportionate burden

Interactive Forms and Online Payments

Some of our interactive forms and online payments are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Our interactive forms and online payments are built and hosted through third party software.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues associated with interactive forms and online payments.

We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal.

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 will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working on the following which will improve the accessibility of this website

  • Redesign and upgrade of the website
  • Reducing the number inaccessible PDFs, either by restructuring them into an accessible PDF format,  creating an HTML version or removing them from site completely
  • Reviewing content readability and rewriting where necessary in more plain language

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 17 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 17 September 2020.