Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to Greater Cambridge Shared Planning.

This website is run by Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, working with South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City 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 use Silktide third party software to monitor and fix our website accessibility.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

Our embedded forms
PDFs
the top navigation when the screen is zoomed in or out

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like an accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact communications@scambs.gov.uk.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 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: communications@scambs.gov.uk.

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

Greater Cambridge Shared Planning 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 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

Forms embedded in webpages

Form controls don’t have labels (WCAG A 1.3.1)
Form fields purpose is not identified programmatically (WCAG AA 1.3.5)
Labels in the forms don’t point to valid IDs (WCAG A 1.3.1)
Fieldsets are missing a legend (WCAG A 1.3.1)

We have raised these issues with our website developers to fix.

PDFs

Some of our PDFs are not compliant with the accessibility standards. We are working through the documents to update them.

Some PDFs:

are missing a title (WCAG A 2.4.2)
are not machine readable (WCAG A 1.1.1)
have no headings specified or the headings do not follow a logical order (WCAG A 1.3.1)
do not specify a default language (WCAG A 3.1.1)
are not broken up with bookmarks, if they are long (WCAG AA 2.4.5)
are not tagged (WCAG A 1.3.1)

Navigable

Some of our embedded videos are missing titles (WCAG A 2.4.1). We are working through the videos and adding titles, where missing.
Some of the text on the top navigation bar disappears under the search bar when the screen size is zoomed in or out (WCAG A 2.4.1). We have raised this with our developers to fix.

Disproportionate burden

Planning PDFs made for print

Some PDF documents made for printing purposes do not contain descriptive hyperlinks, as the documents are published predominantly for printing purposes. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to create a separate, fully accessible copy for the website as these PDFs are printed and given out as physical copies. Digital copies are for reference only.

Planning public access documents

Planning public access documents, decision notices and reports before 2 February 2020 are not accessible. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to update the older documents as we have migrated ICT systems and don't have access to amend the old templates. Any new reports and documents generated from 3 February 2020 are fully accessible.

Any documents that have been signed in person or produced by third parties are not accessible on our Planning public access site this is because the software within the system coverts these files into scans, causing them to be images instead. We consider this to be a disproportionate burden because it is something, we do not have control over however, the supplier is looking at changing this in the future so we comply with WCAG2.1.

Section 106 agreements

As of October 2021 we are now producing accessible section 106 agreements. However section 106 agreements produced between September 2020 and October 2021 are not accessible. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to make these documents accessible due to the cost and officer time involved.

If you would like an accessible version of one of the agreements created between September 2020 and October 2021, please contact us at s106@greatercambridgeplanning.org.

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.

Any new 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.

Maps

Our maps aren’t used for navigational purposes so are exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 26 September 2019. It was last reviewed on 17 February 2022.

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