Accessibility

• 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 have 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

Readspeaker (speech enabling)

On most of our pages you will see a ‘Listen' link underneath the title of the page. This service will read out the text of the web page. This can help many people, including people with visual impairments, people with dyslexia, low literacy, or people whose first language is not English. Find out more about the listen tool here.

How accessible our website is

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

• many documents are in PDF format and are not accessible
• some interactive controls are nested making them harder to navigate
• some link text is not descriptive or unique
• some tables are not coded correctly

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, email the Website Team on onlineteam@tendringdc.gov.uk and tell us:

• the web address (URL) of the content
• your name and email address
• the format you need, for example, accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille.

We'll consider your request and get back to you within 20 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are 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, email the Website Team at onlineteam@tendringdc.gov.uk.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile Applications)(No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the 'accessibility regulations'). If you are 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

There is a Minicom Text Phone on 01255 422470.

Visit our Contact page for more ways to contact us.

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Tendring District Council is committed to making its websites 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.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Main Tendring District Council website:

On pages with expandable menus (accordion headings/titles), elements have focusable descendants which fails WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.  We have fixed some of these and plan to fix the remainder by Autumn 2022.

Some links in our Alert message boxes are identified by colour alone which fails WCAG 1.4.1 Use of Color.  We plan to fix this by Autumn 2022.

Some of our pages scroll across 2 dimensions which fails WCAG 1.4.10 Reflow.  We plan to fix this by Autumn 2022.

We have had to remove the Google translate tool when viewing our site on a smaller mobile device as it causes horizontal scrolling.  If you need to translate our website into another language you can follow these steps:

1. On your computer, go to Google Translate.
2. In the text box, enter www.tendringdc.gov.uk
3. To choose the language for which you want to translate, at the top right, click the Down arrow.
4. At the right, click the URL that appears. The URL will open a new tab and the website will be translated into the language you have chosen.

Other external sites:

We link to a number of external sites to provide some of our core services. For example, some services are available via our MyTendring customer portal, payments are made via our payments portal, planning applications are published on our Public Access portal and committee meetings are available on the Modern.Gov system. We are working with the suppliers to resolve the issues that are identified on these services.  Further details about our external sites can be viewed here.

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable

Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and other documents don't meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they are accessible to a screen reader.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have reports, guidance, documents and application forms available only as PDFs or Word documents.

We have created a register of PDFs which are essential for service delivery and are working through these to create HTML pages and forms or to make the PDFs accessible.

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. However, if you need information in an alternative format, please email the Website Team at onlineteam@tendringdc.gov.uk.

Any new PDFs or Word documents published after 23 September 2019 onwards will meet the accessibility standards.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are working to resolve as many accessibility issues as possible and will release them as soon as we resolve a problem.

We are working with suppliers to resolve any identified accessibility issues where we do not have direct control over their product.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 15 September 2020. It was last updated on 20 July 2022.

How we test this website

Shaw Trust have carried out an automated and manual audit of this website.

Siteimprove and Silktide also undertake automated checks of this website weekly and monthly.  They check 2,500 and 125 pages respectively and report on:

• Pages that conform to WCAG 2.1 A, AA or AAA standards 
• Issues with CSS validation
• Issues with HTML validation
• PDF accessibility including problems with tagging, language definition, headings and labels

We also use tools such as Lighthouse audits, WAVE and AXE.