Accessibility Statement

Last reviewed: 2026-09-05

Conformance target

This site is built to meet WCAG 2.2, Level AA. That's a target, not a certification: the site has been built and reviewed against those criteria — semantic heading structure, colour contrast, keyboard operability, visible focus indicators, alt text, labelled form fields, reduced-motion support — but it has not been through an independent, professional accessibility audit, and no manual screen-reader pass has been run against the live site. Treat this as a considered, self-assessed statement of intent rather than a guarantee of full conformance.

What's already in place

• A "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element on every page
• One logical heading per page, in order, with native landmark elements (header, nav, main, footer)
• Descriptive alt text on every meaningful image, and no decorative images that would need alt=""
• Every form field has a visible, associated label — not a placeholder standing in for one
• Both contact forms validate properly and report errors in text before submitting
• prefers-reduced-motion is respected sitewide — no animation plays for visitors who have that preference set
• The ink-on-paper colour palette used throughout comfortably clears WCAG's 4.5:1 contrast minimum for body text
• lang="en-GB" is set on every page
• Navigation works on a phone. Until August 2026 it did not: below 580px the menu was hidden and nothing replaced it, and a footer that could not wrap pushed most of its links off-screen. Both are fixed, and a check now runs on every change to stop either recurring
• Every page reflows to a 320px viewport with no sideways scrolling
• Menus open on click rather than hover, so they work by touch, and report their open or closed state to assistive technology
• Section headings on the service and briefing pages are real headings. They used to be styled div elements, which meant a screen reader user navigating by heading skipped the whole argument
• Every in-page link lands clear of the fixed navigation bar rather than underneath it
• An automated axe-core scan runs against every page at 375px and 1280px on every change, and the change is blocked if it introduces a WCAG 2.2 A or AA violation, any horizontal overflow, or a control smaller than 24 by 24 pixels

Known limitations

Being specific about what hasn't been checked matters more than a general assurance that everything is fine. As of this review:

• No independent screen-reader testing (NVDA, VoiceOver, or similar) has been carried out. The automated scan below catches what a machine can catch, which is not the same thing
• The automated scan is axe-core only. It reports no violations, but automated testing reaches roughly a third of WCAG criteria — a clean scan is a floor, not a pass
• Formal validation against the W3C Nu HTML Checker and CSS Validator has not yet been completed for every page
• Two embedded third-party services — the Substack subscription form and the Microsoft Bookings page — are outside this site's direct control, and their own accessibility is governed by their respective providers, not by this statement. The contact form is no longer one of them: it's handled entirely by this site's own infrastructure now, so it's covered by the WCAG target above like any other page element

Reporting a problem

If you hit a genuine barrier using this site with a keyboard, a screen reader, or any other assistive technology, that's useful to know about directly rather than through a form. Email nc@neilcatton.com with what happened and, if you can, what page you were on — it will be looked at and, where reasonable, fixed.

Review cadence

This statement is reviewed whenever the site's templates change materially, and at least once a year regardless. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.