Accessibility Statement

Madeley Parish Council takes a concerned and active role in promoting Web Accessibility. We have adopted accessibility best practices and standards. We have followed guidelines defined by the United Kingdom Government, European Union, Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. Users of Assistive Technologies have been actively involved in the testing of our Web pages during the design process.

Attaining a Standard

Since 2002, Madeley Parish Council has been striving to attain 100% accessibility for our Website. We believe that we have now achieved the highest possible standard. It has been acheived by going beyond recognised guidelines and instituting some of our own accessibility solutions. These have resulted from user feedback, which include:

Navigational Aids

• A link to bypass the navigation and go to the main page content.
• Keyboard and Screen Reader Users option links when page contents ends.
• Audio notification to visually impaired users of current section or page, and the opening and closing of a sub menu.
• Proper use of H tags for identifying the page title and sub-headings.
• Attachment of labels to all form elements.
• Provision of Breadcrumb Trail navigation.
• All Pages accessible by keyboard commands.
• No Access Keys (they interfere with Screen Reader commands). This is now supported under the new WCAG 2.0 guidelines.
• No tables.

Presentation

• Identifying the primary natural language of each page.
• All pages use XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS Level 2.1 markup. This ensures consistent rendering of pages and the separation of content from design.
• Font sizes are relative, to enable users to set their own preferences with their browser.
• Color contrast ratios in excess of those specified in guidelines.
• Expanded tags for abbreviations, acronyms, Roman numerals and definitions.
• Server-side mechanism enabling users to change background colours, text size, line and paragraph spacing, text highlighting.
• All appropriate pages have a link to an audio and print alternative.

Images

• Images that convey information have an alternative text attribute.
• Decorative images do not have an alternative text attribute.
• Image Galleries are keyboard accessible.

Additional Assistance

• All pages have a summary heading and informs users when content ends.
• Text is highlighted with a border and darker background on mouseover. This breaks down content into 'manageable blocks' for those with learning difficulties.

Testing Procedures

We have thoroughly tested all our pages using automated software and manual procedures. If you do encounter accessibility problems while using the Madeley Parish Council Website, please contact us about the problem.

Note: Madeley Parish Council is not responsible for the accessibility of third party sites linked from this site.