Serving Old Sharlston · Sharlston Common · New Sharlston

Accessibility Contact the Council

Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to the website of Sharlston Parish Council at www.sharlstonparishcouncil.gov.uk.

This website is run by Sharlston Parish 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 using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% 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:

  • most of our PDF documents are not tagged, so screen readers cannot tell headings, lists and tables apart from the rest of the text
  • some older PDF documents are scans of printed pages. Most now have searchable text, which may contain occasional misread words, but some scanned financial documents and notices have no readable text at all

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 get back to you within 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, contact Emma King, Clerk to the Council:

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Sharlston Parish 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 2.2 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

Documents. Most of our PDF documents are not tagged for accessibility, so screen readers cannot identify the headings, lists and tables within them. Older documents that were scanned from paper have had searchable text added automatically, and this text may contain occasional misread words. Some scanned documents have no readable text at all: our scanned financial returns and notices, such as annual governance and accountability returns, accounting statements and notices of public rights, and a small number of photographs. We have not added text to those financial documents because automatic text recognition misread their figures and dates, and we do not want to give anyone incorrect information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.1.1 (non-text content) and 1.3.1 (info and relationships). We also publish a small number of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that we have not yet checked for accessibility: two application forms in Word format, which you can fill in; the results of our 2024 survey as a PowerPoint presentation, which is also available as a PDF; and our 2025/26 bank reconciliation and explanation of variances as spreadsheets.

If you need any of our documents in an accessible format, contact us using the details under “Feedback and contact information” and we will provide one.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We commissioned an accessibility audit of this website in 2026 and rebuilt the site to address the issues it identified in the site’s own pages, navigation, colour contrast, forms, table headers, heading levels and link text. We have also set a title and language on our existing PDF documents and added searchable text to most of the scanned ones.

Our remaining work, in priority order:

  • replace our scanned financial returns and notices with accessible digital versions — by 31 March 2027
  • make our current policies and our agendas and minutes from May 2025 onwards accessible — by 31 March 2027
  • change how we produce PDF documents so that new ones are accessible when published — by 31 March 2027

When we publish new content we’ll make sure it meets accessibility standards.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 14 September 2026. It was last reviewed on 14 September 2026.

This website was last tested on 14 September 2026. The test was carried out by On Screen.

We tested every page and news post on the website against WCAG 2.2 AA, using a combination of automated tools, AI-assisted review and manual checks. Automated testing used axe and Google Lighthouse. Claude, an AI assistant, reviewed the code of every page for structure, headings, link text, forms and colour contrast. We checked keyboard navigation and visible focus in a web browser, and checked that pages still work when zoomed, on small screens and with increased text spacing. We also checked our PDF documents for titles, language, readable text and tagging, using automated tools and Adobe Acrobat’s accessibility checker.