At Churchers our aim is to make our website as accessible as possible to the widest range of visitors and customers.

This means considering the specific needs of those with visual or physical impairments, learning difficulties and other forms of disability. In addition it means having an understanding of different browser technologies. We produced our site to meet current best practices and guidelines.

The benefits of this approach:

• Sites are available to as wide an audience as possible and across a variety of technologies. They will also be accessible to future devices.
• Sites meet guidelines for those users who may have impairments and difficulties using the web.
• Sites load quicker and use less bandwidth.

How do we do it?

We follow what are known as 'Web Standards'. In the past many web browsers were released that did not follow a common standard for interpreting web pages; they focused on their own propriety code. The result was that we had to sometimes make several different versions of one site for all the various browsers and there would often be inconsistencies across these sites.

In recent years the makers of web browsers have adopted and brought in support for an open set of standards. These standards are laid down by the W3C, a not for profit organisation, that oversees the development of the web.

There is now a move towards this standard based approach method of building websites and Churchers is proud to be working in this way.

Standards Compliant

Designed to be compliant with the latest web standards.

Valid XHTML v1.0

Valid CSS

Double-A WAI Compliancy

Further Information:

Royal National Institute of the Blind
Web Accessiblity and UK Law

Access Keys:

If your browser supports access keys we have defined them for the top level of the site. We have not gone beyond that level as we believe having too many access keys creates a burden on the user in remembering them.

Alt + 1 = Homepage
Alt + 2 = About
Alt + 3 = Services For You
Alt + 4 = Services For Business
Alt + 5 = News & Info
Alt + 6 = Talk To Us

Alternative Stylesheets

You can change the way you browse this site by selecting one of several stylesheets from the list below.

Please note that this feature requires JavaScript to work correctly. If you are using a specialist browser then you may be able to work around this requirement by select the alternative stylesheet from the stylesheet switcher menu.

• Default Style Sheet
• High Contrast - Black On White
• High Contrast - White On Black
• Large Print

Changing the Text Size

Your browser supports a range of text sizes which can make text more readable. To change your font size go to the View menu and select a new size from the Text Size sub-menu. If the biggest size your browser supports is not big enough then you can use the stylesheet switcher above to boost the sizes further.

Navigation Skipping

Jump directly to the content on any page with the skip link shortcut alt + 2. This is also visible at the top of every page, above the company logo.

XHTML / CSS Based Design

By using the latest standardised web development practices we seperate content from presentation and allow specialist browsers to display our content in their browsers with even greater compatibility.

Alternative Image Text

An effort is made to ensure that all images within the site contain alt tags. If they are layout only images, they contain empty alt tags so that special browsers know to skip over them.

Hyperlink Titles

The title attribute on links within this site is used to attach descriptive explanations of link content. This helps the link maintain cohesion when it is read out of context.