Central (City and University) Conservation Area documents - Disproportionate burden assessments for digital accessibility

Accessibility legislation (on legislation.gov.uk website) states that public sector websites must publish content in an accessible format, unless doing so would impose a disproportionate burden on the organisation. If that is the case, an assessment of the extent to which compliance with the accessibility requirement imposes a disproportionate burden must be carried out.

This is a Disproportionate Burden Assessment for the Central (City and University) Conservation Area Appraisal documents.

The benefits of creating accessible versions of these PDFs would be: 

• a fully accessible version for all users to access 
• an easily searchable and indexable version 

Due to the complexity of the maps and diagrams in these documents we’ve estimated that it would take 23 working days of a content designer’s time to create accessible versions of the 13 PDFs. 

• We are legally required to make the documents available to the public, so the documents will be published on the Council’s website
• The documents do meet accessibility requirements for the majority of users, although some groups will find it disproportionately difficult 
• Interest in the documents has historically been low
• We will assist with accessible versions on request 

Having considered the estimated effort involved in making the documents fully accessible, along with the low estimated demand, we have concluded that the work involved would be a poor use of staff time. However, we will assist with accessible versions if requested. 

15 April 2026