Legal
Accessibility statement
Social housing is for everyone in the income band, so this site has to work for everyone: on a basic phone, with a screen reader, with large text, and without a mouse. This statement says what we have tested, not what we hope.
1. Our commitment
We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. Our own target for touch targets is 44 by 44 CSS pixels, which is stricter than the WCAG 2.2 AA minimum of 24 by 24 pixels with its defined exceptions; where we fall short of either we say so below and fix it in the next release.
2. What has been tested, and how
| Check | Method and result |
|---|---|
| Structure | Every page built is checked automatically for exactly one main heading, a title, a description and a canonical address; the build fails otherwise. All 15 pages pass (7 September 2026). |
| Links | Every internal link and image reference is resolved at build time; the build fails on a broken one. The count is recorded in the build log for each release rather than quoted here, because it changes with every page edit. |
| Colour contrast | Calculated for every text colour against the backgrounds it is used on. An independent review on 7 September 2026 found the small gold labels at 2.97:1 on white; they were changed the same day to a darker gold measuring 6.35:1 on white and 5.82:1 on Warm Paper. Body text (Ink on Warm Paper) measures above 7:1; secondary text (Muted Sage) 5.47:1. Labels on Charter Green bands use the light Mist tint, because gold on that green measures 3.90:1; labels on the darker Deep Pine bands stay gold, where they measure 5.84:1. A second automated pass on 7 September found two further failures, the footer contact links (1.5:1) and the introduction on the home page's charter band (1.97:1); both are corrected in the release that carries this statement. |
| Reflow | No horizontal scrolling at 375 pixels wide on the home page (measured). The policy table on the governance page scrolled inside its own container at 320 pixels; it now stacks each policy above its status below 600 pixels, and the container is keyboard-focusable where scrolling remains. |
| Keyboard and menu | The mobile menu opens and closes with its button, reports its state, and closes with Escape. On 9 September 2026 the tab order of the tenant page was enumerated (31 focusable controls, every one with an accessible name, in reading order: logo, menu, page links, contact links, disclosures); focus is shown with a 3-pixel gold outline on every control. |
| Screen-reader structure | Accessibility-tree inspection on 9 September 2026 (Chromium, tenant and governance pages): named landmarks (banner, five labelled navigations, main, contentinfo), one level-one heading, ordered level-two and level-three headings, the warning exposed as a labelled note, every list and list item named, the policy table exposed as a labelled region with column headers and a captioned status table. A pass with NVDA or VoiceOver by a person has not yet been recorded and remains on the list below. |
| Zoom and text spacing | At 200 percent zoom on a 640-pixel viewport (the same as 320 CSS pixels) no page content overflows horizontally. With WCAG text-spacing overrides applied (line height 1.5, letter spacing 0.12em, word spacing 0.16em, paragraph spacing 2em) no text is clipped and nothing overflows. Measured 9 September 2026 on the tenant page. |
| Automated audit | Lighthouse 12 (mobile emulation, throttled network) on 9 September 2026: accessibility 96 on Home and the tenant page, 100 on Privacy and Governance. The one failure was the photo credit line at 4.2:1 against white, caused by an 85 percent opacity; corrected in the release that carries this statement. |
| JavaScript off | Every page is plain HTML. The only script opens the small-screen menu; without it the primary navigation is still reachable through the footer links on every page. Not yet verified on a device with scripting disabled. |
| Images | Every photograph and illustration carries a text alternative describing what it shows; each photograph also states that it is illustrative and not a Magna Carta property. |
| Motion and fonts | Transitions are disabled when a device asks for reduced motion. Typefaces are served from this site; if they fail to load, system fonts are used and nothing else changes. |
3. Known limitations and open items
- The accessibility tree has been inspected and reads correctly, but a pass by a person using NVDA on Windows or VoiceOver on iOS has not yet been recorded. We will list its results here when it is done.
- 200 percent zoom and text-spacing overrides have been measured on the tenant page only; 400 percent reflow and the remaining pages are still to be measured.
- The tagline inside the logo image is very small on phones. The institution's name is carried as the image's text alternative, so nothing essential depends on reading it.
- Documents published in PDF form in future will be tagged for accessibility where we produce them; documents we receive from third parties may not be.
4. Feedback and alternative formats
If anything on this site is hard to use, or you need content in another format or language, email admin@mcshd.co.za or call 010 502 0108. We reply within five working days and will provide the content in a format that works for you.