Accessibility statement
This accessibility statement applies to www.yorkshirewater.com.
This website is run by Yorkshire Water. 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, line heights and fonts
- Zoom in up to 400% 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.
Recite Me
Recite Me is a cloud-based web accessibility assistive toolbar that allows you to customise this site in a way that works best for you. This includes the ability to:
- Translate the website into a different language
- Listen to the text aloud
- Change many aspects of the text display
- Add a reading ruler or screen mask for focused viewing
- Magnify the screen
- Highlight a word to discover its meaning using the dictionary feature
- Remove images and view the page as plain text.
You can access this toolbar using the 'Accessibility tools' link at the top of any page.
The Recite Me website includes a full list of features and guidance on how to use them.
How accessible is this website?
We are currently in the process of redesigning our website and its templates. This new website should be fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.
However, we know some of the older parts of this website may not be fully accessible.
In addition to this:
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- some of the embedded videos from our YouTube channel do not have closed captions, audio descriptions or transcripts to help deaf and/or blind users.
Contact information for accessibility problems
If you need documentation in accessible formats please sign up to our Priority Services register or call us on 0800 138 7878.
You can contact us through a BSL interpreter with InterpretersLive.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Yorkshire Water 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 of our digital journeys include online forms which are hosted in subdomains which are not part of the new WCAG-compliant site. These are:
- Yorkshirewater.com/gdpr and all pages under the ‘GDPR’ section
- Self-serve forms found on my.yorkshirewater.com, tell-us.yorkshirewater.com, login.yorkshirewater.com and ywsonline.com
- Embedded forms on https://www.yorkshirewater.com/general-enquiries/ and https://www.yorkshirewater.com/water-meters/submit-meter-reading/
In addition to this, some of the embedded videos from our YouTube channel do not have captions or audio descriptions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded), 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded) and 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded).
We plan to update these areas and our embedded videos by the end of our current business plan period, March 2026, at the latest.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
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.
Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 22 March 2021.
We have been testing all new templates and components for the site redesign as they have been built, ahead of go-live on 22 March 2021. We aim to review the site’s content every 12 months