Since 2017, this website has been developed and maintained for Cocking Parish Council by Exigia Ltd, whose managing director, Nick Birch, founded the site on 15 April 2005. Any technical or general enquiries about the website should be sent via the Contact Page.

Change Record

This page is a record or change log of recent developments to the website; listed with the most recent first.

September 2021 - New Event features

Features

This month we concentrated on improving the Event features on the site.

• The first change is the addition of and Events Form as an option under the Community menu item (Community > Events). This form is designed to allow cocking.org users to submit  details of events they want publicised on the site. There is also a link to the form on the far right 'Events' module at the top of the Home Page.
• In parallel with this improvement, the main Contact form has a new Topic selection field. This is designed to ensure that messages submitted from the site reach the right person to deal with them as soon as possible. The current options are - General - Council -Events - Website.
• The home page now has an Initial (and possibly temporary)  'What's On' calendar and display of events. This is somewhat experimental and may be replaced or improved over time.

Look out for further improvements in Event display - coming soon.

Appearance

• The format of the tables on the Your (Parish) Council, Council Meetings and Transparency pages has been improved. They now have 'zebra' striping to improve readability.
• Minor changes to icon links etc.

August 2021 - A Major update

Technical

We have performed a major upgrade to the site's CMS (Content Management System). It now uses the latest web technologies and should as a result perform better and be more secure.

Appearance

We have completely refreshed the site's appearance, giving it a brand new look:

• New 'circular' graphics and icons throughout, designed to reflect the theme of the Council's logo
• The rather long Council Meetings page has been split into sections ('paginated')
• Menus have been revised
• New Local Links

Accessibility

We have also improved the accessibility of the site. You will notice a new blue icon that sticks in place towards the bottom left corner of the screen. Clicking on this icon opens a new accessibility toolbar / menu. This menu replaces the options that used to appear at the top of the screen and has more tools / options.

In common with other public bodies, we continue to work to make our website as 'accessible' as possible.  This means that anyone should be able to enjoy the site regardless of their eyesight or other issues and be able to make use of aids such as screen readers.

To date we have:

• Re-tested all pages for potential problems and for clarity
• Adjusted the content where issues were found
• Added a 'blue button' on all pages giving access to a toolbar / menu of controls that allow users to:
  • Increase/decrease text size
  • Invert colours
  • Display pages in grey hues (monochrome)
  • Underline links
  • Make the cursor big
  • Add a moveable reading guide
  • Convert text to speech - as an alternative to an external screen reader
  • Convert speech to text (experimental)
  • Updated the Accessibility Statement under the heading of Accessibility in the About menu

Our aim is to maintain the site so that it conforms as far as possible to the Web Content Accessibility Group (WCAG)'s Standard 2.1 at the AA level.  Some changes will be outside of our scope due to cost and complexity, but the site is now accessible at a very high standard.

New content will be designed to maintain or, where possible, improve our level of conformity and the site will be monitored to ensure that this remains the case. This is not a 'one off', but rather than an ongoing process.  So be prepared for more changes to come and please let us know if you experience problems so that we can try to help.

Last updated: 29 September 2021