Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to content published on the www.investsouthtyneside.com domain.

This website is run by South Tyneside 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)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We acknowledge that some elements of this website are not fully accessible:

  • some video content may not be fully captioned, or provide associated transcripts
  • Not all PDF and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • We link to some online services that are not under our control and therefore we cannot guarantee their accessibility

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working 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, email business@southtyneside.gov.uk or call 0191 481 3456.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

South Tyneside Council is committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

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.

Images

Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

Google Maps

We use Google Maps to display locations in South Tyneside.

The image of the map provided by Google does not have alternate text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). As content from Google Maps is not under the Council’s control, we are unable to fix this, however, we provide the address of the location in text format.

The button to show the street map is using an ARIA attribute that is not allowed (aria-expanded=”false”). This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value – non-text content). As content from Google Maps is not under the Council’s control, we are unable to fix this.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and non-HTML documents

  • Non-HTML documents published before September 2018 do not need to be accessible – unless users need them to use a service.

Video

  • The accessibility regulations do not require us to provide a text only format for pre-recorded video published before 23 September 2020.

Live video

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to test the site quarterly to address any new issues.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2019. It was last updated on 7th July 2022.

This website was last tested by South Tyneside Council on 7th July 2022.

We carried out both manual checks, and automated tests using the Axe Accessibility checker and Lighthouse.

We tested our main website platform, available at www.investsouthtyneside.com, including:

  • Homepage
  • Content pages and forms
  • Search page
  • News pages
  • Events pages