Including West Wratting Parish Council and the West Wratting village website
This website is currently maintained by Simon Chandler, a councilor from West Wratting Parish Council. This page was last update in October 2024.
Location of the website
The National Association for Local Councils (NALC) recommends that Parish Councils use a gov.uk domain name for their website, and that their Parish Council website (which must exist by law) is separated from the village website; however, there is no legislation to enforce this guidance. After serious consideration we have decided to keep the Parish Council website as part of the westwratting.org.uk website.
- Using a gov.uk domain may make a town or city council look more professional, but it’s not really needed for a small village parish council.
- We’ve found that in practice there’s good synergy to be gained by combining the Parish Council and village websites and having the same webmaster. Our parishioners say this works well for them.
- No confidential information is included on our Parish Council website so there’s no need for the additional security of a gov.uk domain.
- For Parish Council work all our councilors use their own dedicated Gmail account, e.g., wwparishcouncil6@gmail.com. Our clerk is at clerk.westwrattingparishcouncil@gmail.com, and there’s a westwrattingparishcouncil@gmail.com account that can be used to simultaneously email the clerk and all councilors.
- Nobody with whom we’ve communicated has expressed any concern or surprise that we use Gmail. This includes our parishioners, other members of the public, businesses and MPs.
- Gmail gives us access to secure online storage for Parish Council documents that we can share by using Google’s tools (e.g., docs, sheets). These free tools would be lost by moving to gov.uk.
- Our email and council files are protected by Google’s highly respected security, and is continuously backed-up to prevent data loss.
- Council websites need to meet certain requirements of accessibility for disabled users. It’s sometimes argued that combining the council website with a village website would require that both parts meet the accessibility requirements, and so it would be easier to keep them separate. We believe both parts should strive to be accessible, and having achieved it for one part the second is easier.
In summary, after careful consideration we have concluded that moving our Parish Council website to a gov.uk domain would cost this parish much more in fees, and give our parishioners no discernible benefit.
Accessibility
The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require that the websites of Parish Councils meet certain requirements so that it can be used by as many people as possible including those with impaired vision, motor difficulties, cognitive impairments or learning disabilities, deafness or impaired hearing (Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies). From October 2024 parish council websites must meet the standards set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), specifically WCAG 2.2 level AA.
There are lots of companies trying to make money out of this, e.g., Aubergine (who are are advertised by SLAC). What they offer is not cheap, and won’t guarantee that you have a compliant website unless you learn yourself what the requirements are and write your webpages accordingly.
Although the requirements may seem daunting there are good articles by the government that explain the principles (Making your service accessible: an introduction) and other guidance on writing compliant webpages, e.g., from w3.org.
What we have done to try to meet accessibility requirements
After doing some study we believe our website is now mostly WCAG2.2AA compliant, and we are striving to improve further. Firstly, we have chosen to use a WordPress theme, Twenty Twenty-Three, that is ‘accessibility ready’. We also consider the following when creating pages:
- Provide alternatives: Use text alternatives for non-text content, like images, and don’t use video.
- Use clear language: Use language tags to specify the language of content, and provide clear, simple instructions for user input.
- Use consistent navigation: Make sure navigation elements appear in the same order on every page.
- Use appropriate markup: Use the proper markup for features like forms and data tables.
- Use accessible names: Use appropriate labels for input fields and descriptive tags for navigation links and buttons.
- Use accessible authentication: Make sure authentication methods don’t rely on cognitive function tests, like solving a puzzle.
- Provide consistent help: If your service provides help options, make sure they are presented consistently across pages.
- Use text that contrasts with the background: Use text colors that are easy to read against the background color.
- Make content responsive: Make sure your service works well with different devices, page orientations, and font sizes.
- Make content accessible with assistive technologies: Mark up important messages so screen readers know they are important.
Accessibility Statement
This statement was prepared on 1st November 2024.
West Wratting 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.
This website is mostly compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 standard.
This accessibility statement applies to the website for West Wratting village (westwratting.org.uk), which includes pages for the 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:
- 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.
Non-accessible content
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.
- Ideally users should be able to change colours, contrast levels and fonts, but this is something I’m not entirely sure how to do.
- There may be pages with read more / click here links. See WCAG 2.4 Success Criterion 4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context). These will be avoided in future.
- Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. See WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
- Some images on the website pages may not have a text alternative, so the information on them isn’t available to people using a screen reader. See WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives when we publish new content and aim to ensure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page, think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, or need information on this website in a different format please send email to:
- clerk.westwrattingparishcouncil@gmail.com
We will act on and respond to all feedback we receive about issues using the website. Some issues with navigation and accessing information may be difficult to fix and we may decide that doing so is a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your feedback or complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
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 documents for meetings that took place before 23 September 2018.
Any new PDFs or documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We continuously try to make our website more accessible and will make updates to the site when required. If you tell us about a specific accessibility problem we’ll strive to fix it.