Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk.

This accessibility statement applies to www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk.

This website is run by Mid & East Antrim 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 (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 this website are not fully accessible:

you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
live video streams do not have captions
you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader

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: communications@midandeastantrim.gov.uk

Call: 0300 124 5000

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 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, email us at communications@midandeastantrim.gov.uk.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’) in Northern Ireland. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your request or complaint, please call ECNI to talk with one of their Discrimination Advice Officers in their Legal Division.

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Mid & East Antrim 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 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

Some of our pre-recorded audio and video do not have captions (WCAG A 1.2.2). We plan to add captions for all pre-recorded audio and video.

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Visible keyboard tab focus is unavailable on the homepage carousel (directly after the ‘View more services’ button).
The social media icons in the footer and the live chat icon do not receive visible tab focus.
There are colour contrast issues when blue and white are used, for example, the ‘View more services’ button on the home page.
Some of our PDF documents, online forms and third-party products are not accessible:
- PDF documents: The following PDFs are inaccessible, but if you need them in another format, please email communications@midandeastantrim.gov.uk
  - Financial Reports
  - Local Development Plan library
    The documentation that forms part of the draft Plan Strategy Document Library process is displayed within a document library on the website. There are 200 PDFs, varying in page length, in this section.
    
    In accordance with the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 and The Planning (Local Development Plan) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, the Council is required to make, publish and provide access to the documents that form part of the Local Development Plan and supporting Evidence Base.
    
    The Local Development Plan library will remain as inaccessible PDFs on the website. However, if you need to access a document in the Local Development Plan library in another format, please email planning@midandeastantrim.gov.uk.
  - Some of our Policies and Documents are currently inaccessible. We plan to provide alternative HTML page versions of these documents.

Our intention is that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden

We are not claiming a disproportionate burden for this website.

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 plan 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. For example, we do not plan to fix our 2015-2019 Corporate Plan section where the content was published pre-2018.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

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

Third-party suppliers

e.g. Jobs section, Waste Bot, Tascomi platform, Survey Monkey forms and MS Forms where applicable, also Grants Portal.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 4 April 2022. It was last reviewed on 4 April 2022. We will continue to review our accessibility status on a monthly basis and update the statement when needed.