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Coastal deprivation and digital levelling up
If you ended up on a beautiful UK beach in the summer – or have ever enjoyed an afternoon with a bucket and spade and a slightly sandy ice-cream, the following statistics may come as a shock. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2020)1 67% of coastal towns are in the ‘higher income-deprivation category’ compared with just 36% in non-coastal towns, that is a wide divide, so how can this disparity be addressed? Digital up-skilling can be one of the solutions.
Coastal town deprivation
Eighty-five percent of the coastal towns facing rising levels of deprivation, are in the East of England, East Midlands, Yorkshire and The Humber, and the North East. The trend is also mirrored in the North West where 16 out of 21 coastal towns are in the most deprived incomes category. Overall, over 3.8 million of the 5.4 million people who live in coastal towns in England and Wales, live in one of the 114 highest income-deprived towns.
These towns never recovered from the financial crisis of 2007,2 and with another looming, we must find solutions to this ever worsening situation. Since the demise of the large scale local industries, there has been a persistent trend of skilled workers moving inland to find work and higher wages, and unskilled youth in search of cheaper accommodation and casual work, moving to the coast. Without support, opportunity or aspirations these young people become trapped in a cycle of poverty, alcohol and drugs.
Blackpool is one of the towns on the deprivation front line. Back in March, as part of its Levelling Up blueprint for the town, the Government heralded a ‘transformative King’s Cross style regeneration programme to create beautiful new homes and turbocharge tourism in the area’.3 All very positive – but the tourist season runs from April to October – so what happens to the seasonal workers for the rest of the year?
And what about coastal towns without the allure of being a holiday destination? We need to back up development with other ventures.
Over the past two years, there has been a revolution in the way we work
Over the past two years, there has been a revolution in the way we work. The remote working model, crucial when we were in the grip of the pandemic, could help provide a digital solution to coastal deprivation. We can reverse the continuing exodus of skilled workers heading inland in search of job opportunities, by creating remote or hybrid, digital opportunities. These industries can provide year-round employment to revitalise these towns.
Digital equity requires massive investment and commitment to improving digital connectivity – access to high quality infrastructure. Alongside this we must ensure school-leavers have the requisite IT skills and provide access to upskilling opportunities for those presently Not in Education or Training (NEET) so our young people are work-ready.
The need for applicants with computing skills is country wide. Computing includes skills and concepts like complex problem solving, design, logical reasoning and algorithmic thinking, applicable in many different contexts from science and engineering to business and humanities.
We need to provide our young people with the training, understanding and awareness of technological possibilities, to open the doors to their future technology-based careers.
Fleur Sexton, Deputy Lieutenant West Midlands and Managing Director of PET-Xi – one of the most hard-hitting and dynamic training providers in the UK with a reputation for success with the hardest to reach – shares her thoughts on how ensuring young people have work-ready digital skills can help to reverse spiralling deprivation in our coastal towns.
Find out more about our company and how we can help you
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Accessibility Statement
www.pet-xi.co.uk
02/12/2023
Compliance status
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience,
regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level.
These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible
to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific
disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML,
adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Screen-reader and keyboard navigation
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with
screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive
a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements,
alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website.
In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels;
descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups),
and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag
for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology.
To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on
as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Disability profiles supported in our website
Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments
Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over 7 different coloring options.
Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.
Browser and assistive technology compatibility
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Notes, comments, and feedback
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to