What are cookies?
Cookies are little text files which are stored on the browser or hard drive of your computer or mobile device when you visit a webpage or application. Cookies work to make your experience browsing our site as smooth as possible and they remember your preferences so you don’t have to insert your details again and again.
Cookies can be stored for varying lengths of time on your browser or device. Session cookies are deleted from your computer or device when you close your web-browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer or device until deleted or until they reach their expiry date.
You can find out more about Cookies at The Cookie Law.
Why do websites use cookies?
Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device. Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’).
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences, and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier. If a website doesn’t use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site – for example, when you enter your login details and move to another page it won’t recognise you and it won’t be able to keep you logged in.
Some websites will also use cookies to enable them to target their advertising or marketing messages based for example, on your location and/or browsing habits.
Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting (‘first party cookies’) or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing (‘third party cookies’).
Understanding how and why we use cookies
The main reason that we use cookies is to gain anonymous information as to how users are engaging with our website. We use Google Analytics to identify factors such as average time spent on our website, which pages are most commonly visited, how users found our website and the route taken through the website during a users visit. This information is anonymous and we don’t collect personal information regarding visitors to our website through cookies.
We don’t sell the information collected by cookies, nor do we disclose the information to third parties, except where required by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).
If you’re not happy with this, you can control third party cookies by adjusting your browser settings, or you can Opt-out of tracking here.
How you can manage your cookies
The browsers of most computers, smart phones and other web-enabled devices are typically set up to accept cookies. If you wish to amend your cookie preferences for this website or any other websites, you can do this through your browser settings. Your browser’s ‘help’ function will tell you how to do this.
If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set. However, please remember that cookies are often used to enable and improve certain functions on our website. If you choose to switch certain cookies off, it is likely to affect how our website works.
By using our site you accept the terms of our Privacy Policy.
Changes to the cookie policy
We may update this policy from time to time. If we make significant changes we will let you know but please regularly check this policy to ensure you are aware of the most updated version.
This Cookie policy was last updated on 1st July 2022.