This accessibility statement applies to Cheltenham Borough Council’s main website, cheltenham.gov.uk, and connected sites listed below:

The online payments portal at civicaepay.co.uk/CheltenhamEstore has its own accessibility statement.

This website is run by Cheltenham 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 per cent 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 our website are not fully accessible, for example:

  • Many of our PDF downloads are not fully accessible to screenreader software
  • Live video streams of our council meetings do not have captions
  • Most videos do not have audio descriptions
  • Some of our forms may not let you use autocomplete accurately

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:

  • email [email protected] - please give us the web address (URL) of the page you would like in a different format
  • call 01242 264234

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 7 working days.

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, please contact the webteam:

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

You can contact us using a text relay service, such as Relay UK by British Telecom, if you are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment. Our municipal offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange for British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation. Please note our offices are currently only open for appointments. Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Cheltenham 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 (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

We are working with our staff and suppliers to address all issues so that we can be fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA as soon as possible. We have produced a Digital accessibility policy to help us do this.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Our main website: cheltenham.gov.uk

If you do a search using the main site search box, the results pages have numbered links at the bottom which aren't labelled properly. This means their purpose is not clear to a screen reader user. The numbered links refer to the pages of results. For example the link labelled "2" will take you to the second page of search results. This fails success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships and 2.4.4 link purpose (in context).

Some PDF documents contain images or other non-text content that doesn't have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader can't access the information. This fails success criterion 1.1.1 non-text content.

Some PDF documents do not provide information on the structure or the roles of components to help you navigate, such as headings. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 info and relationships.

The reading order of some PDF documents is not correct, making it difficult to access these using a screen reader. This fails success criterion 1.3.2 meaningful sequence.

Website privacy pop-up

Buttons in the privacy pop-up are just labelled 'agree' and 'disagree' without a clear indication of what these refer to. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 info and relationships.

Idox online forms

Some of our online forms are provided by a third party (Idox) - for example the report an abandoned vehicle form and some of our licensing forms. These forms are found at cheltenham.idoxds.com.

Radio buttons on our Idox forms don’t have field sets or legends which means they are not linked to the question being asked. This makes it difficult for screen reader users to understand the purpose of the radio buttons, which should allow you to choose one option from a list. This fails success criteria 1.1.1 non-text content; 1.3.1 info and relationships; 3.3.2 labels or instructions and 4.1.2 name, role, value.

Idox Public Access

Public Access is third party software provided by Idox which enables customers to view and comment on planning and licensing applications.

Public Access follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (AA) standard and uses the following accessible best practices:

  • Clear page titles for better orientation.
  • Alternative text description for images (“alt text”) and other non-text elements.
  • Consistent and clear use of headings including a semantic hierarchy (where possible).
  • Association of form controls with corresponding labels.
  • Logical order for forms that can be navigated using a keyboard (e.g. Using the ‘Tab’ key to move between fields).
  • Clear form error messages in proximity to corresponding erroneous form fields.
  • Association of all data cells in a data table with their headers.
  • Meaningful text for hyperlinks (and a title attribute, where applicable).
  • Sufficient foreground and background colour contrast combinations for clear readability.
  • Keyboard navigation, including for menus and calendar controls.

There are a number of accessibility issues with Public Access which are listed below:

  • There are instances of non-unique HTML IDs, which is invalid mark-up. This affects how screen readers parse and announce the page content. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.1 - Parsing
  • Some page headings are not in a logical hierarchy order, which can affect how content is announced by screen reader technology and keyboard-only navigation. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.6 – Headings and Labels
  • On the Documents table, the action icons all have the same alternative text/titles, which means screen-reader users will not be able to distinguish between individual items. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
  • The reCAPTCHA widget does not use sufficient colour contrast for some elements and may be difficult to use with the keyboard. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum) and 2.1.1 – Keyboard
  • The map component uses some tables for layout; its controls do not always receive focus and are not accessible by keyboard navigation. Some functions (such as measuring distance and area) need a mouse or touch interface. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.3.1 – Info and Relationships, 2.1.1 – Keyboard and 2.5.7 – Dragging Movements
  • The desktop version of pages will not reflow without content scrolling both vertically and horizontally. This will make it more difficult for some users to use the content when zoomed into a page at higher values (for example 200 per cent). This fails WCAG success criteria 1.4.10 – Reflow, 2.4.11 Focus not obscured (Minimum)
  • The integrated online measuring tool (OMT v5.0) has various issues - these include missing form labels, heading levels and alternative text for images/icons; empty elements (with no text content); and low colour contrast. These fail WCAG success criteria 3.3.2 - Labels or Instructions, 2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context), 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum)

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. We are working 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.

We are working to make sure PDFs or Word documents we publish from September 2022 will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

  • In 2021 the Shaw Trust carried out a full audit of our website
  • We worked with the Shaw Trust to identify and fix areas of our website that didn't comply with the regulations
  • Relevant officers have had training from the Shaw Trust and internally on how to produce accessible content
  • We've written a digital accessibility policy to help us further improve and maintain the accessibility of our online services
  • We need to decide how we'll carry out future audits of our site
  • We're working to replace PDF and Word documents with web pages and online forms where possible

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 8 January 2021. It was last reviewed on 19 November 2024.