Havant Borough Council > Council and Democracy > Websites

to the Borough of Havant website. If you are new to using the internet and would like some help getting used to its conventions, we recommend the BBC's 'Webwise' site which includes a free on-line course on the basics of using the internet, with lots of questions and answers about the web.

We hope that you will find your visit useful and enjoyable. To help us to improve it for future visitors, please take the time to fill in our on-line User Questionnaire with your honest views on our site.

Our intention is that this site should serve the whole Borough. It is not just for the Borough Council. In this site you will find much information provided by a wide variety of companies, individuals and other organisations. If you have a site which deals with an aspect of Havant Borough, why not ask us to link to your site using this online form?

You may need the following to view some items on this site: Acrobat Reader (10 mb ); Microsoft Word viewer (12 mb ); Microsoft Excel viewer (10 mb ). Obviously you do not need the two Microsoft Viewers if you already have Word or Excel (or an alternative which can read them) installed on your computer.

Viruses and Hoaxes - Protecting your Computer

Using the internet can open your computer to attack by malicious programmers - writers of viruses of various forms. There are also other types of 'attack' which are not what they appear; namely, they are hoaxes which seek to cause worry to internet users, and also seek to clog up the email system by asking you to forward messages on to your friends.

Our advice is simple - always run up-to-date antivirus software; always ensure that your computer has the latest 'patches' (program updates) applied; use a firewall by default; NEVER open an email attachment unless you are absolutely certain you know where it has come from; NEVER respond or pass on virus warning messages without checking they are real.

More information can be found at http://www.sophos.com/

Site Basics - Menus and Layouts

Like every website, the individual files on our site - or 'pages' - are linked together by hyperlinks. If text, these hyperlinks are coloured green. On some pages the links are images, in which case you can always tellwhether a link is present by hovering your mouse pointer over it - the cursor will change from a point

to a hand

To save you time drilling down to the relevant information, we have tried to link directly to specific parts of external websites, rather than just the home page. On websites where content is generated dynamically this is not always possible, and we are usually only able to take you as far as the main subject heading. If you find an external link doesn't work properly it may be that a deep link has moved - please let us know.

Jargon - Plain English

This is a local government site! Government is famous for using jargon, abbreviations and so on in writing and speaking. Jargon is not acceptable on the web, where people visiting sites may not understand what is meant. We will be working towards a jargon-free site over the next two years or so, but in the meantime there is a very useful 'Guide to Jargon' available online on the web site of The Guardian newspaper.

Site Map (Layout)

The site is split into main topic areas in accordance with the Local Government Navigation List. This list is now becoming the standard way of navigating council web sites and you should find consistency between our site and others.

Finding Information Quickly

If you're uncertain as to where an item of information may be, try the A to Z of services, Site Map or Search first. We have cross-linked some pages to more than one menu if there appears to be an overlap with the page's content between two or more areas of the website.

Accessibility / Assistive Software

The Council is committed to providing access to information for all visitors. See our accessibility page for details on how we are changing our site to assist visitors who require assistive software (such as braille readers or speech browsers).

Technical Design

We check the appearance of our pages using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape Navigator 4.0, and above. Other browsers, and earlier versions of these browsers, will probably render the page correctly but at present we do not explicitly check this.

At some times of the day internet response times are slower than others, and your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may also be under load at other times which will slow down your connection.

We provide certain information in PDF (portable document format). These documents have been created using Adobe Acrobat 5® or above. The documents will be read accurately by Adobe Acrobat Reader® 3.0 and above which is freely available for download from Adobe's website, or is often contained on magazine cover disks. Users of assistive software can convert PDF files to other formats which will allow your software to read them successfully - see our accessibility page for more information.

If you find an external link doesn't work properly it may be that a deep link has moved - please let us know.

The pages on our website are generated dynamically using the Immediacy Content Management system, thus meeting Priority Services and Transformation Outcome R24 as required by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The site is designed assuming a screen at 800 x 600 pixels in full-screen view. To change your screen settings see the section below.

Our Content Management System produces computer code which meets the XHTML 1.0 Strict specification (although we are aware of features on a limited number of pages which fail this standard, and are working to correct this).

Screen (Monitor) Resolutions

Although intended for the widest possible compatibility, this Website is developed to look best in Internet Explorer or Netscape versions 4.0 and above with a screen resolution of at least 800 x 600 pixels. If your computer is running Windows® and you are currently using a lower resolution and want to change to a higher one, follow these instructions.

3. Locate the 'Color palette' dropdown list and set it as high as possible. GIF format images are set in 256 colours, however JPG images can run to thousands or millions of colours, so set the higher figure for widest compatibility.

5. Click the 'OK' button at the bottom and follow any screen instructions to complete the screen changes.

Browser Versions

For information on accessibility and assistive software, we recommend the AbilityNet website. Our site has full details of the use of assistive software and how you can change the way this site looks to suit your own personal preferences.

Use of Third Party Software Add-ons to your Web Browser

We have tried to avoid the use of any techniques which can't be read directly by your browser. The exception to this is that some documents, particularly Council Minutes [decisions], Press Releases and some Job Adverts, require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader®, which is available from the list below.

Some of the documents and media in this site may require the following readers or viewers. Please note that these links are placed here only for your convenience and not as an endorsement of either the product or the software.

Microsoft Word 97 to 2003 viewer [External website]
Word reader for Linux [External website]
Microsoft Excel 97 to 2003 viewer [External website]
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 to 2003 viewer [External website]
Adobe Acrobat Reader [External website]

Support for Software Applications

More Help

Need more help? Want to learn a bit more about computers and the internet? Try our link to Computer and Internet Books from Amazon.

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