• Some documents are in PDF format aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
• Online maps (particularly the Google maps on our parking pages) and mapping services are not accessible
• Some promotional images may contain image text that can cause problems for users who need to adjust how visual content like font size, spacing or colours are displayed
• Some of our video content (particularly live streams) do not have captions

If you require any information on this website in an alternative format, please email communications@lancaster.gov.uk with the following information.

• the web address (URL) of the content

• your name and email address

• the format you need, for example, braille, accessible PDF or Easy Read (pictures and simple print)

• State the language you require

You can also telephone us on 01524 582000

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

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, please email us at communications@lancaster.gov.uk 

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).

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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Issues with PDFs and other documents

WCAG 2.4.2 Page Titled - Web pages should have titles that describe their topic or purpose. PDF documents published by some of our third-party systems do not have a document title and may be inaccessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. We are awaiting accessibility updates from the respective suppliers to ensure new documents are published in an accessible format.

For existing documents in scope of the accessibility regulations, and which currently do not meet the required standard, as part of our development of this website we plan to move to a new Content Management System (CMS).

This new CMS will provide us with new accessibility features and the ability to check documents on publication to ensure they are compatible with (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

It is expected that work on moving to this new CMS will take place over the course of 2026, with a full transition by March 2027.

Civica Modern.Gov

Our meetings and minutes publishing system at https://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk is supplied by Civica.

ModernGov software is not able to create fully accessible PDF documents. This means that they may not be read by a screen reader and have issues such as:

• Not PDF Tagged so difficult to navigate and can't be read by a screen reader easily.
• Don't have a default declared language.
• Have a missing document title.

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

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

PDFs and other documents

We have many non-HTML documents published before September 2018. The regulations state they do not need to be accessible, unless users need them to use our service.

These are mainly:

• historical investigation reports (public interest reports)
• historical focus reports
• historical copies of our annual report and accounts

We do not plan to replace these documents with more accessible formats. However, users can request these in alternative formats by contacting us at communications@lancaster.gov.uk

Live video

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

We are in the process of moving to a new Content Management System for this website. This is software that enables users to create, manage, and modify website content without specialised technical knowledge or coding.

It acts as a central hub for storing, organising, and publishing digital content.

One of the main criterion for choosing this new system was due to the increased focus on accessibility and it will provide us with additional tools to fix existing issues and help us more fully meet WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

This website was last tested on 05.02.2026 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard by Lancaster City Council's Communications Team.

The test was carried out using Wave and browser-based accessibility tools.

Our approach to testing was to identify a representative sample of pages by:

• using analytics to understand the most commonly used pages

• using our insight to identify the pages most crucial to accessing our services. 

• including in the sample most of the common page templates used on our website

We also reviewed our pages for readability and correct heading structure.