Accessibility | Somerton Town Council

Accessibility statement

for www.somertontowncouncil.gov.uk

This website is run by Somerton Town 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 to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the website using a keyboard or 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 are not fully accessible:

most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
live video streams do not have captions
there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page

Feedback and Contact Information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: [email protected] giving the page title and nature of the problem.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

email [email protected]
call 01458 272236
write to us or visit us at Edgar Hall, 8 Cary Court, Somerton Business Park, Somerton, TA11 6SB

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us for directions.

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

Somerton Town 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible Content

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

Non-compliance with the Accessibility Regulations

Maps displayed by Google Maps – we don’t control how Google Maps displays information, but where possible we provide addresses within the web page’s text (via HTML). When Google makes their map output accessible, we will update our technology accordingly.

Pictures of event or information posters, when provided by a third party – where possible we provide the information from the picture, within the web page’s text (via HTML). We will encourage all providers of these pictures to provide accessible alternatives in future.

Some PDFs published since September 2018 are not in an accessible format, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value). We plan to replace these with alternatives by March 2026. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of PDFs meets accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden

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). This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.1 (bypass blockers).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.4 (orientation).

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.4 (resize text).

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

Interactive Maps

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 March 2026, 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 meeting agendas or minutes for meetings which were published prior to 23 September 2018.

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.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We run quarterly reports to identify and address accessibility issues.

This statement was prepared on 1^st November 2024.

It was last updated on 1^st November 2024.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 1^st November 2024. It was last reviewed on 1^st November 2024.

This website was last tested in March 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

The test was carried out by both internal systems and our website provider, Aubergine 262. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.