Accessible council websites
Accessible by design, not by afterthought
Around one in four people in the UK has a disability, and many more find websites hard to use because of age, poor eyesight, a slow connection or an unfamiliar layout. For a parish council that is not a niche audience. It is the residents you serve.
Every website we build is designed and tested to meet WCAG 2.2 at level AA, the standard the public sector accessibility regulations require. Accessibility is built into the templates, the colours, the typography and the content editor, so it stays in place long after launch, however often your pages change.
What WCAG 2.2 asks of a council website
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are organised around four principles. A website must be:
- Perceivable: text that can be enlarged, images with meaningful alternative text, and colour contrast strong enough to read in poor light
- Operable: every page and menu usable with a keyboard alone, with visible focus, sensible link text and targets that are easy to tap on a phone
- Understandable: plain language, consistent navigation, clear form labels and helpful error messages
- Robust: clean, standards-based code that works with screen readers, browser zoom and assistive technology
WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, added new criteria that matter to councils: minimum target sizes for buttons and links, keyboard focus that is never hidden behind a sticky header, help that appears in the same place on every page, and sign-in that never relies on memory or puzzles alone.
Your legal duties
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to parish and town councils. Your website must meet WCAG 2.2 AA, publish an accessibility statement in the required format, and keep both under review. The Government Digital Service monitors public sector websites and can ask a council for evidence.
We supply every council with an accessibility statement written for its own site, and we update it whenever the standard or the site changes. Documents you publish, from agendas to the annual governance and accountability return, are covered by the same rules, so our training shows your clerk how to create accessible documents too.
People asking about accessibility usually want to know about security too. How we keep your website and your data safe covers hosting, backups and who can reach what.
How we test every website
WAVE
by WebAIM
WebAIM's browser tool paints every heading, label, contrast issue and missing alternative text directly onto the page, so we see problems in context and fix them at source.
Google
Lighthouse
The audit built into Chrome scores accessibility, performance and best practice on every page. We look for a clean accessibility score and pages that load quickly on any connection.
Axe
by Deque
The Axe engine runs the same rules many professional auditors rely on. It catches errors in the code itself, from form labelling to ARIA roles, that are invisible on screen.
Tools find problems. People find the rest.
Automated checkers only catch part of the picture, so we never rely on them alone. Before a site goes live, and after every major change, a member of our team works through it the way a resident would.
Keyboard only navigation of every page, menu and form
Screen reader review with NVDA and VoiceOver
Zoom and contrast checks at 200% and 400% magnification
Plain English review of headings, links and content
Documents checked for structure and tags before publishing
Ready for a better council website?
Let's build a website that works for your council and your community.
