Accessibility statement for Surrey Heath Borough Council website

Accessibility statement for the Surrey Heath Borough Council website.

This accessibility statement applies to the Surrey Heath Borough Council website. The URL for this website is www.surreyheath.gov.uk.  This website is run by Surrey Heath 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% 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
  • 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:

  • some documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • on our step by step webpages, visible label and accessible name do not match
  • on our directories the icon used on maps (button) is missing a text alternative 

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:

We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within 10 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, contact: web.support@surreyheath.gov.uk (link sends email). 

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) (external link).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We have an audio induction loop system in our Contact Centre.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Surrey Heath 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 version 2.1 (external link) AA standard, due to ‘the non-compliances’, listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

On our directories the icon used on maps (button) is missing a text alternative: This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).

Some documents published after 23 September 2018 may not be fully accessible for various reasons. 

These include:

  • Missing headings or headings that don’t follow a logical order - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships)
  • Missing titles - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled)
  • Default language not specified - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page)
  • Some links to other websites may not be fully accessible - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose In Context)
  • Some images may not have alternative text - This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Non Text Context)
  • Some tables, including nested tables, may not be easily readable - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2 (Meaningful Sequence)

Disproportionate burden

Documents

Some of our documents published after 23 September 2018 are not fully accessible for various reasons.

Issues include:

  • Missing headings or headings that don’t follow a logical order - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships)
  • Missing titles - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled)
  • Default language not specified - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page)
  • Some links to other websites may not be fully accessible - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose In Context)
  • Some images may not have alternative text - This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Non Text Context)
  • Some tables, including nested tables, may not be easily readable - This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2 (Meaningful Sequence)

We’ve assessed the cost and resources required to fix all our PDFs. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. 

Due to time and resources, it may not always be possible to fix all PDFs before they are published.  When this is the case we will assess the cost and resources required to fix them, and in some cases, we may find they meet the criteria for disproportionate burden at that time. 

We will continue to monitor this and make further assessments when each document is due to be updated (timescales for this vary according to the document) or sooner if resources allow.

The following documents were considered to be a disproportionate burden to fix at the time of publication, but will be reviewed again in the future.

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

PDFs and other documents

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. 

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Maps

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix online maps and mapping services, as long as essential information is provided in an accessible digital manner for maps intended for navigational use. Online mapping applications are used on the Surrey Heath Borough Council website. General mapping is used which is traditional online mapping designed to show boundary and location information for themes such as borough and ward boundaries, public rights of way, conservation areas and listed buildings. View our maps. Maps are also available on our planning applications search. The intention of these maps is to display the boundary of a planning application retrieved through a search. Due to the nature of maps, these are not able to be accessible, although where appropriate are augmented by written text. They maps are not designed for navigation purposes and are thus exempt from the accessibility regulations. 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Document accessibility

We plan to make sure that PDFs which we publish after 23 September 2018 meet accessibility standards.  

We reviewed our corporate templates which make it easier for staff to ensure their documents are accessible. There are also a number of resources available to staff to support with this. In addition to this each department has an accessibility contact who have undergone training to ensure they have a knowledge and understanding of the accessibility regulations.

All PDFs will be checked for accessibility before they are added to the website and listed on our inaccessible documents should they be classed as a disproportionate burden.

We are in the process of implementing a HTML documents module. We aim to transfer some of our inaccessible documents into this format once implemented.

Accessibility monitoring and reviews

We will review our Site Improve reports monthly to check for any new accessibility issues.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 4 April 2025.

This website was last tested on 2 May 2023. We tested this website using Wave, Axe Tools, screen readers (NVDA/Narrator) and a manual keyboard (against WCAG guidelines).  We tested a sample of pages based on the most popular from our analytics data.

We also use Site Improve to monitor accessibility. This tests all pages on the website.