Accessibility

We want everyone who visits Preston.gov.uk website to be able to find, read and understand our content.

We aim to make our content meet the accessibility standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 at an AA standard and aim to go above and beyond the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.

View the website your way

Our Accessibility Statement explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities and user friendly for everyone.

The guidelines have three levels of accessibility (A, AA, and AAA). We aim to achieve AA standards on our websites.

The Recite Me tool

We use Recite Me on our website, which helps you to personalise and customise your website experience with us, in a way that helps you.

You can find this tool bar at the top of the page using the 'Accessibility' button.

The Recite Me toolbar allows you to:

• change the colours and contrast levels
• change the font styles
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate and listen to each web page read out in a natural voice
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• translate the website into over 100 different languages
• change the websites margin sizes or use the ruler function to make it easier to read the text

Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

Readability

We have ensured that the design of our website is not an obstacle to its usability and readability, and that it will work on a variety of devices with different screen sizes.

We have used a colour palette on the website that ensures good contrast.

We have made every effort to ensure our website is easily readable using 'plain English' by removing jargon and using more simple language.

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

SignLive - Support for the deaf

We recognise and value all our customers, including those who use British Sign Language (BSL) and/or Speech to Text Translation (STTR).

We are part of the Community Directory where you can contact us via a British Sign Language interpreter using SignLive.

Visit our SignLive Information page

How are we doing?

We are working hard to achieve our goal of Level AA accessibility, but we are aware of some areas of our website that still need improving.

Visit the Silktide Index to see how we compare to other UK Councils.

How accessible is our website?

We are aware that some parts of our website are not fully accessible, these include:

• Some of our online services are hosted by third-party suppliers and you may find navigating these services difficult depending on their level of web accessibility. These include but not restricted to Modern Gov, Mi-permit parking service, Capita services and E-claim housing benefit services.
• Most of our older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• Online maps and mapping services are not accessible
• Live video streams and some videos do not have captions
• The readability of some pages is above the recommended reading level.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

• Ongoing audit of the content -  we use Silktide to monitor and improve our website. The software monitors content, accessibility, speed and legal compliance.
• We audit each web page to ensure it is written in plain English, links are accessible, images have appropriate alt text and page titles are descriptive.

What to do if you cannot access part of our website

If you need information on our website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please email webmanager@preston.gov.uk. 

Please make sure you provide the service area, document name and/or the web address (URL) of the page the content is on and a description of the format you need. For example; audio CD, braille, BSL or large print.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our website.

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements contact the web team on webmanager@preston.gov.uk.

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, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Cross working with third party services   

Through the Inclusion Reference Group, we work closely with a number of partners from the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to ensure we further improve our engagement and consultation with all communities.

If you require an interpreter to enable you to access a Council service please contact, Lesley Pritchard (Inclusion Officer) on 01772 906670 or email l.prichard@preston.gov.uk   

Links to other websites

To benefit our users we link to other websites, such as:

• news websites
• social media platforms
• official information sources

We are not responsible for the accessibility of these or any other websites that we do not manage.

We value your feedback

We value feedback from real website users and would love to hear from you and the experience you had with us.

We will continue to review and improve our website to provide the best possible level of customer service. If you would like to make a suggestion on improving our website, especially from an accessibility point of view, please contact the web team on webmanager@preston.gov.uk..

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has useful tips on contacting organisations about inaccessible websites.