Accessibility Statement

We want everyone who visits our website to be able to access the full range of services available, regardless of their skill or technology.
This website was launched in 2021

How accessible the site is

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

What to do if you have problems or queries

If you have any accessibility problems or feedback, please use our contact us page.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you're not happy with how we respond, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Visit County Durham is committed to making our website accessible, in accordance with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Under the Equality Act 2010 we must ensure we do not unlawfully discriminate in our service delivery and make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities where necessary. We are constantly working to improve the accessibility and usability of our site.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Information about which areas of the website fail.

• links - Not all links explain their purpose WCAG A 2.4.4   
• links - Adjacent links maybe combined with the same destination WCAG A 1.1.1  
• links - The same link text may be being used for different destinations WCAG A 2.4.4 
• media - Captions may not be provided for all prerecorded audio and video WCAG A 1.2.2    
• images - Alternative text may not b available for images inside links WCAG A 1.1.1  
• images - Alternative text may be the same as adjacent text WCAG A 1.1.1    
• images - Alternative text is may not be appropriate WCAG A 1.1.1    
• images - Images may not have been correctly defined as decorative WCAG A 1.1.1  
• titles - Each page may not have an appropriate title WCAG A 2.4.2  
• media - Prerecorded media may not have a description or text alternative WCAG A 1.2.3    
• media - Captions may not be provided for all live audio WCAG AA 1.2.4  
• media - Prerecorded video may not have text alternative WCAG A 1.2.1  
• iframes - Each frame may not have an appropriate title WCAG A 2.4.1  
• forms - Labels or instructions may not be provided when content requires user input WCAG A 3.3.2

Accessibility Roadmap

As stated in the non-compliance section, the known issues are listed below:

• HTML – the underlying code used to create this website.
• CSS – used to describe how HTML elements are displayed on this website.
• JavaScript – a development language used to program behaviours on this website.
• 3rd Party Functionality
• Content - this could include web page content or associated PDFs on this website.

A program of work is now underway to address these issues and involves working with Durham County Council’s in-house developers/designers as well as third party functionality providers.
We aim to resolve the above items by December 2024.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

• PDFs/documents (pre September 2018): PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 or documents that are not essential to providing our services
• pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020
• live audio and video
• interactive maps unless they provide core information

How we test the site

We re-assess a website or system for accessibility whenever it undergoes a major modification.
We check all new content we add.