Accessible Gardening in Palmers Green Area

Gardening Palmers Green is committed to ensuring that our content and services are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. This statement explains how we approach accessibility for gardening in the Palmers Green area, the standards we follow, and how we support assistive technologies. Our aim is to make local gardening resources, volunteer information and community updates perceivable, operable, understandable and robust for as many residents as possible.

We regularly test pages and resources for compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Accessibility is part of our ongoing site improvement plan and community engagement. We recognise that some users need alternative formats, so we provide plain language summaries, high-contrast options and scalable text where appropriate. If you have trouble accessing content, please let us know through the contact routes available for the Gardening Palmers Green area so we can help.

Our design and development follow practices that improve access for assistive technologies. We prioritise semantic HTML, descriptive headings and alt text for images, and clear navigation structures. Screen-reader support is central to our approach: actionable controls are labelled, landmarks are defined, and page regions are predictable to assistive tools and users navigating by voice or a screen reader.

We also focus on robust keyboard navigation so people can explore site content without a mouse. Keyboard focus order is logical, interactive elements are reachable via the Tab key, and visible focus indicators help users track their place. Our interactive event lists, volunteer sign-up elements and local gardening maps are tested to ensure they can be operated by keyboard alone.

How we meet accessibility standards is outlined below and includes both automated and manual checks. We run audits with recognised tools and complement those with real-user testing involving people with lived experience of disability. This balanced approach helps us catch issues that automated checks alone might miss and ensures the Gardening Palmers Green community tools perform well in real use.

Key accessibility features include:

• WCAG 2.1 AA compliance as our baseline for design and content.
• Screen-reader friendly markup and ARIA roles used where necessary to enhance semantics.
• Full keyboard navigation for menus, forms and interactive maps.
• Scalable text, high-contrast options and clear colour use for readability.

We aim for clear, plain language so that gardening advice and local notices are understandable to a wide audience. Where complex information is required — for example, horticultural safety notices or event procedures — we provide summaries and structured layouts so the most important information is easy to find.

If you encounter a barrier despite these measures, we want to know about it. Please tell us what you were doing, which page or resource you were using, and which assistive method you rely on. That helps us prioritize fixes and ensure the Palmers Green gardening resources work for everyone in the area. We will respond and propose an accessible alternative or a reasonable adjustment.

We regularly update this statement to reflect improvements and to record where challenges remain. Accessibility is an iterative process: we publish progress updates, corrective actions taken, and planned work to enhance usability for the Gardening Palmers Green community. Our goal is to reduce friction for participants, volunteers and visitors who engage with local gardening initiatives.