Accessibility

As an organisation, we provide translation and interpretation services to our customers. We want everyone to feel confident and comfortable accessing our services.

You can ask for information in large print, Braille or translated into other languages and we can also provide sign language (BSL) interpreters for booked meetings or telephone conversations on request. Our customer newsletter, Moor To Sea, is sent out to customers via email but we can arrange for them to be sent as hard copy if you would prefer. Please contact us if you would like these services.

Every page of our website provides access to an online tool called 'ReachDeck'.

Visitors to our website can open the ReachDeck toolbar by selecting the green icon found on either top left or bottom left of your screen, depending on whether you are on desktop or mobile. 

Once you've done this a toolbar will then open up at the top of the web page if using a desktop, or at the bottom of your web browser if using a mobile phone.

How to use the Reach Deck tools

There are 11 icons on the toolbar to help make our website more accessible for you. Below is an explanation of what each icon does (from left to right): 

Hover to speak

This tool will read out loud each sentence you hover over. It will then continue, sentence by sentence, until it reaches the end or you close the tool. 

Speak the current selection

This tool will read a highlighted section of text. If you don't select text, it will read out the entire page.

Stop playing

This allows you to stop playing the selection of text.

Translate page

This tool translates the text on the page to different languages. When you click on the tool, a list of languages will appear in a drop-down menu. Choose a language and it will translate the page.

Please note: The website language translator is Google Translate, which whilst useful, is rarely one hundred per cent accurate. For anything where the specific detail is extremely important, such as a tenancy agreement, please just ask and we will provide a translation by Language Line free of charge to you.

Picture dictionary

This tool allows you to highlight a word and get images to help define words.

MP3 maker

This will create an MP3 sound file which you can download. You will need to select the text you want to convert into an MP3 file, then click on the tool.

Screen mask

The screen mask highlights a rectangular section of the screen. There are two options for this tool which you can change in the settings menu.

• The ruler darkens the rectangular section and is like reading a page using a ruler to follow line by line.
• The letter box is the reverse: the rest of the page is darkened and the rectangular section is lighter. 

Text magnifier

This setting enlarges the text as it is read out loud and appears in a bar across the top of the page. You can change the size of the magnified text in the settings menu from a choice of five options.

Simplify

This tool will strip out all the distracting menus and boxes from a page and leave just the article text

Help

This button provides a quick list of the features described on this page.

Settings

If you want to make changes to any of the tool's settings like text size for the magnifier or voice speed for the read out loud tools, you can do so here. 

Some people find it easier to read a web page if there is a higher contrast between the background and the text. If you choose this option, pages will remain in that view during the same session providing you have “accepted cookies”.

To use

Click on the 'Accessibility tools' button on the screen. 

Then you will see the contrast buttons. You will be able to choose between a list of contrast options.

• The middle button with a brown background will give you a medium colour contrast between the background and the text.
• The button with the black background on the right will give you a high contrast between the background and the text.
• The button on the left with a white background will take you back to the normal view.

Change the size of the text
Some users will wish to view the text in a larger size than normal. If you change the size of the text, all our web pages will display the same text size during the session. This will only happen if you have “accepted cookies”.

Click on the three dots at the top of the screen web browser and select Zoom and choose the text size increase you prefer.

Temporarily change the size of text on your screen
You can also use your keyboard, or keyboard and middle mouse wheel (if you have one), to change the size of the text when viewing text using most browsers.
Larger text: [Ctrl] and [+] or [Ctrl] and mouse wheel forward.
Smaller text: [Ctrl] and [-] or [Ctrl] and mouse wheel back.

The above method will make everything on screen larger/smaller including images.

Permanently changing the size of text in your computer settings
You can also change the setting on your computer, or through your browser, so that you always have the size of font that you prefer for all websites. You can change it back again any time you wish.

We have made our website speech enabled. This means that we have installed a programme called Reachdeck on our server which will read the text on our web pages out loud. It will only do this if you have installed the free user software on your own computer first.

Text to speech using Reachdeck

The Reachdeck button (figure of a person) is at the top or bottom of the screen depending if you are on desktop or mobile and it will open the toolbar if you click on it. Instructions for how to use this tool bar are further up this page. 

It is an online screen reader to help anyone who would prefer to listen to the content on our website rather than read it. It is special software which reads the text on the screen and speaks those words to you out loud. When it is running, you simply need to move the mouse over some text on our web page, click on the icon that appears and the text is read out to you.

Reachdeck is only a text reader and should not be confused with screen reading software for the blind. This is because it requires some degree of vision and the ability to move the mouse pointer.

Text-to-speech using your computer

Text-to-speech software is not the same as screen reading software for the blind. A screen reader will interpret the coding on a web page. It can read the alternative text for images as well as list headings and links to the blind user.

There are many different types of sight impairment including colour blindness and macular degeneration and we have done our best to ensure that users with vision impairment will have an equivalent experience to other users when visiting our website.

Throughout our website you will see links to documents which you can open or download onto your computer. We have converted all the documents on our website to PDF (portable document format). This means you will be able to read these documents if you have Adobe Reader installed on your computer regardless of the software you use to create your own documents.

Adobe Reader is the name of the free software that can open PDF documents. If it is not already installed on your computer you will need to download Adobe Reader. With this you can hear a PDF document read aloud or scroll a PDF document automatically if you go to Edit Preferences. We aim to ensure that our PDF files are all accessible and if you find one that is not, we ask you to kindly tell us below so we can fix it.

You can read our Accessible Information Policy here. 

If you have any questions about accessibility or would like to suggest an improvement, please contact us here.