PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE REGISTERING A PUBLIC ACCESS ACCOUNT

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE OF PUBLIC ACCESS

Your Data

By registering with this Public Access website ("the site") and the services contained herein ("Services") you agree to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions in addition to any terms and conditions published on the Council's website.

Use of the site includes accessing, browsing, or registering to use the site, as well as submitting comments, tracking applications, creating saved searches and receiving notifications regarding the change in status of an application. If you do not agree to and accept these Terms of Use, you should not complete the registration process.

The personal data you provide as part of your registration process (name, address, email address and optional telephone number) is necessary in order for Public Access to be able to:

  • Send you a registration confirmation email
  • Send you an email with details on how to change your password if you forget it
  • Notify you of any changes in the status of tracked applications, saved searches or saved map searches that you enable within your Public Access account
  • Upon submitting a comment, provide your contact details to the Council so that the Council can process your comment
  • Send you confirmation emails of any comments that you submit against an application

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) consent must be obtained for the use of your personal data upon registering an account as part of the above Public Access services.

Remember, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this by deleting your profile from the My Profile area whenever you are logged in. This will also delete any saved searches and tracked application details and notifications you have enabled.

Please note that if you choose not to register then you can still browse the site but you will not be able to receive any notifications on application status changes or save any searches.

Website Etiquette

You must not post or transmit via the Public Access website:- any virus, impersonation, unlawful, threatening, defamatory, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, confidential, pornographic or profane material, material which promotes violence, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age, material which infringes any copyright, database right or trademark of any other person, material which is likely to deceive or which promotes unlawful or illegal activity, material which is threatening, abusive or invades another's privacy or which causes annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety, material which is likely to harass any other person, material which can be used to impersonate any person or to misrepresent identity or affiliation with another person, or any other material which could give rise to any civil or criminal liability.

You agree to use your reasonable endeavours to ensure you or persons accessing the site from your computer do not:

  • abuse or fraudulently use any of the services on the site including but not limited to unauthorised or attempted access, alteration or destruction of information or data;
  • use services in a manner that causes interference or tampers with another user's use of the site;
  • use services in a manner that violates generally accepted rules of conduct;
  • enter, post or transmit any material in contravention of the rights of any third party

Security and Confidentiality

When you register on this Public Access website you provide a username and password. You must treat such information as confidential and must not disclose it to any third party. If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your username and password, you must change your password using the forgotten password functionality.

Neither the Council, nor Idox Software Ltd (as providers of the Public Access function to the Council) can be held liable for any loss occurring as a result of a person accessing the site using your password.

Published Information

Public Access only publishes information relating to applications which has been determined as publishable by the relevant Council.

The content on the site is provided for public purposes and for general information and use only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on the site. You acknowledge that any reliance upon any information obtained or received via the site shall be at your sole risk.

Certain elements of the Public Access web site will contain material provided by councils for publication, some of which may have come from you.

Idox Software Ltd does not accept any responsibility for the content or accuracy of such material and is not responsible or liable for the content of any information transmitted or received through the provisions of the site.

You can also consult the Council's website for further information and guidance on the information that is published.

Accessibility statement

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Idox Public Access / Consultee Access follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (AA) standard and employs the following accessible best practices:

  • Clear page titles for better orientation.
  • Alternative text description for images ("alt text") and other non-text elements.
  • Consistent and clear use of headings including a semantic hierarchy (where possible).
  • Association of form controls with corresponding labels.
  • Logical order for forms that can be navigated using a keyboard (e.g. Using the 'Tab' key to move between fields).
  • Clear form error messages in proximity to corresponding erroneous form fields.
  • Association of all data cells in a data table with their headers.
  • Meaningful text for hyperlinks (and a title attribute, where applicable).
  • Sufficient foreground and background colour contrast combinations for clear readability.
  • Keyboard navigation, including for menus and calendar controls.

We are aware that there are some aspects of the product that are not fully accessible:

  • Non-unique HTML IDs: There are instances of non-unique HTML IDs, which is invalid mark-up, which affects how screen readers parse and announce the page content. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.1 - Parsing
  • Headings: Some page headings are not in a logical hierarchy order, which can affect how content is announced by screen reader technology and keyboard-only navigation. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.6 – Headings and Labels
  • Document icons alt text: On the Documents table, the action icons all have the same alternative text/titles, which means screen-reader users will not be able to distinguish between individual items. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
  • reCAPTCHA: Our third-party reCAPTCHA widget does not use sufficient colour contrast for some elements and may be difficult to use with the keyboard. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum) and 2.1.1 – Keyboard
  • Map component: Our third-party map component uses some tables for layout; its controls do not always receive focus and are not accessible by keyboard navigation. Some functions (e.g. measuring distance and area) require a mouse or touch interface to achieve. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.3.1 – Info and Relationships, 2.1.1 – Keyboard and 2.5.7 – Dragging Movements
  • Reflow: The desktop version of pages will not reflow without content scrolling both vertically and horizontally. This will make it more difficult for some users to use the content when zoomed into a page at higher values (e.g. 200%). This fails WCAG success criteria 1.4.10 – Reflow
  • Online measuring tool (OMT): The integrated online measuring tool (OMT v5.0) has various issues (which will need to be addressed independently of Public Access) - these include missing form labels, heading levels and alternative text for images/icons; empty elements (i.e. with no text content); and low colour contrast. These fail WCAG success criteria 3.3.2 - Labels or Instructions, 2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context) and 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum)

How we tested Idox Public Access / Consultee Access

An un-skinned version of the product (v3.6) was last tested on 09 February 2024. The Idox Web Team carried out the testing, with the help of accessibility testing software WAVE and AXE.

As there are many identical pages (i.e. case files), a representative selection of these pages was tested.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We're using reports from accessibility software, WAVE and AXE, and following WCAG guidelines to work towards being fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria.

We will work to address any issues which are brought up by users, as well as reviewing the compliance as part of any future updates to Idox Public Access / Consultee Access.