Forest Pathways

How

Here is our accessibility statement. There are many other examples which we will add shortly.

Accessibility statement, Privacy Policy, T&C's, Terms of Service, GDPR, Cookies and Responsibilities.

Using this site

Forest Pathways (owned and maintained by Guy Woodland) takes no responsibility for the content that is supplied or curated. We do our best to insure that the information supplied here is correct.

About

Unlike the privacy policy on most websites, ours isn't adapted from a template, or just copied and pasted from wherever; it's been painstakingly written out by a human, who has considered what this website does, how you are most likely going to interact with it and what (if any) aspects of it impact your personal data. Crucially, it's been written so you can A. Understand it and B. It isn't so long and laborious that you might actually bother to read it all! As such, our policy doesn't use lots of fancy legal language and might contain the odd typo. it is also a work in progress; we update our policy as our understanding of the new GDPR legislation changes and as we improve our website and add or remove elements.

Overview

We respect your right to privacy and will always do out absolute best to ensure we conform to not just the laws at the time, but also our moral obligation to you. That's why we will never knowingly allow anyone to use any data about you that we hold unless legally required to do so, and we will always keep it secure and (where possible) will remove all trace of it at your request.

Normally we only hold names and email addresses you provide us, but at times we may hold other identifiable data about you, gathered with your consent, to carry out our day to day business with you. For instance, you might supply us with data as part of an enquiry, or as part of a purchase, or a booking process for a service, etc. In all instances this data is destroyed once it is no longer relevant or required, or held securely if it forms part of a service agreement with you or there is a legal requirement for us to retain. In which case we can hold data for up to seven years.

Like most websites, this site uses cookies (read more about them below) and also like most websites this site may share your IP address (read more about them below) with some online services. By continuing to use the site you agree to this. We don't do either of these things because we're evil, it's just for a modern website to work the way most people want them to work, you have to! DON'T PANIC though, for the majority of users you're not directly identifiable by these actions. Big Brother isn't watching!

Cookies

Cookies are little bits of software that are added to your computer as you use and interact with websites. They are used mostly for good: To improve your experience, sometimes for bad: Search engines, Social sites etc may use them to track what a computer (the computer, not the person) is looking at. Many like Google will use them to target you with adverts and for analytics, which results in them being able to build a profile of what you do online. You will get these cookies added to your computer when you land on certain websites, like Google, Youtube, Facebook etc. This site makes use of Cookies, mainly so we can be sure to only show you certain content once, for example popups or reminders.

Cookies can sound a bit Orwellian and "Big Brother", but mostly they're pretty harmless and unless you land on a website that requests your data and you offer it, the data they hold is mostly anonymous, they don't have your name and email address etc. You can clear out your cookies by clearing your browser history.

As we said though, this site from time to time will use cookies (never for data gathering or advertising). It is generally good practice to install a cookie manager, so that you can see what websites install what cookies, as most have them but few admit to it.

IP Address

An IP address is a unique number that identifies your computer on the internet, it is in the form of 111.222.333.444. Lots of services, like YouTube, Facebook etc, requires that websites send them your IP address before they will allow sites to display things like embedded video, or Facebook elements, and so on. In reality your IP address isn't personal data, as 99% of the time you can't really be identified by it, but some consider it so, so to keep ourselves in the clear we've added this bit to our privacy policy: On occasion your IP address may be shared with some service providers.

Emails

Emails are normally kept until our inbox is over-flowing and we have a clear out and delete or archive all the old ones. We never use addresses obtained from emails for anything other than responding to the emails you send us. We don't harvest these emails for other purposes. Once we clear out our inbox and delete old emails from you, your details are gone.

Accessibility Statement

General

We strive to ensure that our website is accessible to all people regardless of ability or disability. We have invested a significant amount of resources to help ensure that this website is made easier to use and more accessible for people with disabilities, with the strong belief that every person has the right to live with dignity, equality, comfort and independence.

We monitor our website using automated audit programs such as Google Chrome, Lighthouse and WAVE as these provide a snap shot for obvious issues.

WCAG 2.1

We try to improve our websites accessibility in line with Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). This international standard is used by certain law enforcement agencies around the world to measure accessibility. Whilst we appreciate the legal position we consider the user is a better judge of a websites accessibility and are actively pursuing a change in the law.

To comply with said legislations we use AQA to run automated audits which generate a comprehensive audit report comparing the code on your website to the WCAG 2.1 standard.

We are very open and if you have any access issues please email me and I will endeavour to (a) sort out the issue or (b) if required we can try and provide the content using a different method.

Screen Readers And Assistive Technology Tools 

But we believe that the true test of any sites accessibility is assessed by the people who use the site. We regularly have the website checked out by people trained to be assistive technology engineers.

We also check the website using Apples built in screen reader and Google Chrome Browser.

Current Audit

Lighthouse results 14 December 2023

The site scored100% on Lighthouse desktop for Accessibility.

The site scored100% on Lighthouse mobile for Accessibility.

The site on WAVE had no errors and no contrast errors and just 3 alerts which when examined are not an accessibility issue.

The site will be manual tested in the new year.

Disclaimer

We continue in our efforts to constantly improve the accessibility of this site and services in the belief that it is our collective moral obligation to allow seamless, accessible and unhindered use for all regardless of ability or disability.

Despite our efforts to make all pages and content accessible, some content may not have yet been fully adapted to the strictest accessibility standards. This may be a result of not having found or identified the most appropriate technological solution.

Here For You

If you are experiencing difficulty with any content on this website or require assistance with any part of our site, please contact us during normal business hours as detailed below and we will be happy to assist.

Contact Us

If you wish to report an accessibility issue, have any questions or need assistance, please do get in touch.