This website has been built to comply with the Priority 2 (Double A) accessibility checkpoints, as established in the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative. The initiative promotes usability and accessibility for people with disabilities. Details on the World Wide Web Consortiums web accessibility initiative are available at www.w3.org/WAI (opens in a new window).

The majority of the website's pages conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative's 'AA' standard.

This website also conforms to the UK government guidelines for websites. HTML 4.01 Transitional, XHTML-transitional, CSS 1.0, WAI WCAG Level 2 have been set as technical standards.

The Sitemap shows you the main structure of the website navigation and clicking on any of these links will take you to that page.

To increase the size of text in your browser:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7:
  Select the 'Page' menu, then one of the options under 'Text Size'. The default setting is Medium. You can also hold Control and press +.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6:
  Select the 'View' menu, and select one of the options under 'Text Size'.
• Mozilla Firefox:
  Select the 'View' menu, then 'Text Size', then select Increase, Decrease or Normal. You can also hold Control and press +/-
• Opera:
  Select the 'View' menu, then one of the 'Zoom' percentage options.
• Safari:
  Select the 'View' menu, then either 'Make Text Bigger' or 'Make Text Smaller'. You can also hold Control and press +/-
• Netscape:
  Select the 'View' menu, then one of the 'Text Zoom' options.

The BBC have a comprehensive list of how to customise your text size and other features of other browsers in their My Web My Way (opens in a new window) section.

Changing the website's background colour can be particularly useful for users who rely on magnification technology as white can produce an uncomfortable glare. It is also possible to change the colour of body text on the site. Both can be achieved by changing preferences in your browser.

If you use:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer:
  Go to the Tools menu, select Internet Options, select Colours and make changes to text and background colours in the Colours panel.
• Mozilla Firefox:
  Go to the Tools menu, select Options, open Fonts and Colours. You can make changes to Fonts and background colours and link colours.
• Netscape Navigator:
  Go to the Edit menu, select Preferences, open the Appearance menu and select Colours. You can set the colour of text and background from here.

Screen resolution, measured in pixels, refers to the resolution of the computer monitor. The screen area setting is an important factor in how much information your monitor can display. This web site is designed for a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768. If your current setting is lower than 1024 x 768, the pages will not fit into your browser window without the need to use the scrollbars.

If you would like to change your settings to the recommended resolution for optimum viewing of this website, follow the steps outlined below:

• For Windows:
  Right-click your desktop. Choose 'Properties' (should be the last choice on the pop-up menu). Click the 'Settings' tab. Change the number on the slider bar (bottom left) from the current resolution to 1024 x 768. Select 'OK'.
• For Macintosh OSX:
  Click the 'Apple' symbol in the top-left-hand menu on your desktop. Click 'System Preferences'. Click 'Displays'. In the pop-up window click 1024 x 768in the 'Resolutions' window. Your monitor will resize automatically.
• For Macintosh OS9:
  Click the 'Apple' symbol in the top-left-hand menu on your desktop. In the drop-down menu, go to 'Control panels' and click 'Monitors'. In the pop-up window select screen size 1024 x 768. Your monitor will resize automatically

The web pages on this website are designed to be used with screen readers, so that visually impaired users can easily access the content and navigate the site.

The content of each page can be accessed quickly by following the 'Skip to content' link found at the start of each page.

Interactive mapping, used in address searching and location plan markup, is a graphically intensive web application and one that cannot currently incorporate full accessibility standards.

Some pages require the Adobe Reader plugin to view content. Adobe Reader can be downloaded from the external link below.

• Adobe Acrobat Reader (for viewing PDF files, opens in a new window)

If you have any difficulty reading PDF documents, you can download them to your computer, and send them by e-mail for conversion to HTML or text. The e-mail addresses to use are pdf2html@adobe.com (Opens your mail client) or pdf2text@adobe.com(Opens your mail client).