Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for the National Forest website

This accessibility statement applies to the National Forest website and the codebase it uses.

This website is run by the National Forest Company. We are committed to accessibility, and we want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, this 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 have 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.

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

Modifying line height or text spacing may cause some text to become harder to read
Some text can become hidden at increased text sizes
The colour contrast of some text is below minimum requirements
most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
Live video streams do not have captions
Some videos may not have captions or audio alternatives
Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
Some form fields where errors are detected are not marked as invalid
Focus indicator for keyboard only users may not be visible
The heading structure of the page may not be marked up correctly on all pages
You cannot skip to the main content when using the keyboard alone
There’s a limit to how far you can magnify the maps on this website

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, or you cannot view a map on the website and need directions, please contact us:

Email: enquiries@nationalforest.org
Telephone: 01283 551211
In writing: National Forest Company, Enterprise Glade, Bath Yard, Moira, Swadlincote, Derbyshire, DE12 6BA

We will consider your request and get back to you within 20 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are committed to making our website accessible and are continuously working on the issues that are known to us. We have a report and roadmap to resolving all current known issues on our website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, you can report this by emailing: accessibility@nationalforest.org

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 issue or complaint, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

For people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment and want to contact us by phone, please call us using a text relay service. Our office reception is situated on the ground floor with no steps, wide doors and a reception desk to accommodate visitors in a wheelchair. We do not currently have audio induction loops, however, you can contact us before your visit to explore options of arranging a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter, if required.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The National Forest Company is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

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

Non-accessible content

There is no content listed which is non-accessible.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

We expect the issues below to be resolved by 30 September 2021 following audit. We will re-audit our site soon:

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content).
Some media content does not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (Captions (pre-recorded)).
Some media content does not have a text alternative for video content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3 (Audio description or media alternative (pre-recorded)).
There are some issues with information structure and relationships that cannot be programmatically determined. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and relationships).
The search input and button are not programmatically in the correct tab order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3 (Focus order).
There are some links whose purpose in context is unclear. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link purpose (in context)).
Input errors are not associated to input fields nor are the fields marked invalid. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.1 (Error identification).
There are some HTML errors that need to be resolved. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).
No audio description is provided for video content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.5 (Audio Description (pre-recorded)).
The colour contrast of some text is below requirements. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Colour contrast).
Some text is unreadable at higher levels. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (Resize text).
The colour contrast of some non-text content is below requirements. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.11 (Non-text contrast).
Adjusting text spacing or line height makes some content harder to read. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12 (Text spacing).
Some content is only available on mouse hover. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.13 (Content on hover or focus).
Focus indicator is poorly visible or absent. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7 (Focus Visible).

Disproportionate burden

We are not claiming disproportionate burden for any content.

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

Third Party Content

In order to provide enhanced content for our visitor section, we allow businesses to upload some documents that provide more detail on their business, such as menus, posters, leaflets, etc. Whilst we encourage businesses to make their content accessible, we cannot guarantee that all documents meet guidelines. If you encounter a problem with any of these documents please let us know and we will help as best we can.
Some forms and user journeys, such as pages within our checkout process, are hosted through third party suppliers and software, that we have no control over.
Some of our forms use reCAPTCHA to prevent spam enquiries. Anyone unable to access any part of the site due to the reCAPTCHA can contact accessibility@nationalforest.org
We use Google Maps. We understand that this is inaccessible to some user groups. For example, the items on a map cannot be tabbed onto via keyboard-only commands. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4 (navigable) Google Maps is from a third-party source and its functionality is beyond our control. If you require an accessible map, please contract accessibility@nationalforest.org.

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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 research such as Community perceptions of the National Forest research.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap includes three sprints to complete the required improvements to accessibility on this website. We aim to start work in October 2020 and complete it by 30 June 2021.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 6 October 2020.

This website was last tested on 20 August 2020 and 2 September 2020. The test was carried out by Test Partners Ltd and our web agency Zoocha.

When deciding which pages to include in our testing, we considered our most visited pages, important user journeys, templates and pages that had difficult functionality, such as sliders, search tools and galleries.