Accessibility Statement for the Castle Point Borough Council website
Castle Point 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.
This accessibility statement applies to the council website: www.castlepoint.gov.uk
Compliance status
The Castle Borough Council website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliance(s) and exemptions listed below.
- Many of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards.
- Council PDFs are not essential to providing our services such as making sure the information contained in them is provided in an alternative format.
- We understand that the regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, if they are not essential to providing our services.
-
We aim to ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish from 23 September 2020 onwards will meet the accessibility standards.
Non-accessible content
Despite the council’s best efforts to ensure accessibility, there may be some limitations.
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reason(s) and some potential solutions:
- We have a small number of embedded videos on our website and some of these do not have captions.
- Some of the images on our website do not display appropriate ‘alt text’.
- Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software:
- PDF documents are not correctly titled
- PDF documents do not contain a page language
- Page headings do not fall within a content section.
- The scrolling banner on the leisure page does not have text equivalent content.
If you need information on the website in a different format, such as an accessible PDF, large print, Easy Read, audio recording or braille, you can contact us.
We aim to respond within ten working days.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 29th September 2020.
Castle Point Borough Council assessed the accessibility of the website by using the automate testing tools on Acquia
Acquia checks across the whole website on a regular basis and reports on:
- Pages that conform to WCAG, A, AA, or AAA standards.
- Issues with CSS validation.
- Issues with HTML validation.
- PDF accessibility including problems with tagging, language definition, headings and labels.
The council also applies the following approaches to check accessibility needs:
- Self-evaluation.
- External evaluation and advice by Acquia
- Guidance from AbilityNet.
- Automated accessibility testing tools for example online contrast checks.
- The council also attempts to make the website text as simple as possible to understand.
The council are working with suppliers to resolve any identified accessibility issues where we do not have direct control over their product.
The website is scanned by Acquia on a weekly basis
This statement was last reviewed on 1st July 2025.
Feedback and contact information
Castle Point Borough Council recognise that accessibility is an on-going process, and continue to improve accessibility of the council website.
If you find any problems or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact the us:
By phone: 01268 882200
By email: info@castlepoint.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).