Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service website (www.northyorksfire.gov.uk)

This website is run by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. 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 (in your browser settings)
• 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’ve 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.

Access keys

An Access key is a keyboard shortcut that replaces the need to use a mouse for navigation. In most Windows browsers you can press ALT + an access key; and Macintosh users can press Control + ALT (Option) + an access key. Then, if necessary, press Enter to activate the link.

The following Access keys is enabled throughout the website:
1 : Jump to Home page

This Access keys are based on UK Government guidelines. We have attempted to avoid conflicts with commonly used operating system shortcuts.

How accessible this website is

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

• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• older videos do not have captions
• there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘our fire stations’ page however this content is also available in an accessible format on our contact us page
• some pages and documents are not written in plain English
• some documents have poor colour contrast
• some images do not have image descriptions
• some heading elements are not consistent

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:

• Email capabilities@northyorksfire.gov.uk
• call 01609 780150
• using our contact form for website feedback

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in.

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, contact:

Corporate Communications Team

By email using media@northyorksfire.gov.uk

or in writing at:

Corporate Communications Team
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service HQ
Alverton Court
Northallerton
DL6 1FE

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.

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service 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’ listed below.

Non-accessible Content

• Some PDF and Word documents do not have appropriate colour contrast. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast.
• Images on some pages and in some documents do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
• On some pages headings have not been correctly labelled, so they appear as normal text. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
• Some pages and documents are not in plain English. This fails WCAG 2.2 succession Criterion 3.1.5 (Reading Level)

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

PDFs and other documents

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 older copies of our corporate documents.

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’re doing to improve accessibility

We’re working to fix the non-compliances identified above.

We’re working to make our website more accessible through the use of plain English throughout the site.

We intend to make more PDF documents such as our policies and procedures, available as HTML webpages. We are also working to replace documents which have poor colour contrast.

We are reviewing images used on this website to ensure they have appropriate alt text descriptions and are reviewing pages to ensure headings are used appropriately.

We aim to complete this work by the end of 2024.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on 25 May 2021. It was last reviewed on 16 August 2024.

This website was last tested on 21 October 2022. The test was carried out by our website developers, Urban River Creative.

Urban River tested the pages using WAVE and manually confirming certain elements to be accessible such as alt-keys. We have tested the following pages:

• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/business-safety/faqs/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/your-safety/safe-at-home/electrical-safety/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/contact/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/about-us/who-and-what/nyfcc-fra/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/about-us/who-and-what/our-organisational-chart/
• https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/your-safety/youth/firesafe/firesafe-referral/

We took this approach as the website is built with various components and this covers all of the components used on all of the other pages of the website.