COOKIE POLICY

WHAT IS A COOKIE?

A "cookie" is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive and which records how you move your way around a website so that, when you revisit that website, it can present tailored options based on the information stored about your last visit. Cookies can also be used to analyse traffic and for advertising and marketing purposes.

Cookies are used by nearly all websites and do not harm your system.

WHAT COOKIES DO WE USE AND HOW DO WE USE THEM?

On this site, we use Analytics Cookies to anonymously remember your computer or mobile device when you visit our website. They keep track of browsing patterns and build up a profile of how our readers use our website. This helps us to develop and improve our website in response to things you might need or want.

These cookies can be identified as:

- Session cookies: these are only stored on your computer during your web session and are automatically deleted when you close your browser – they usually store an anonymous session ID allowing you to browse a website without having to log in to each page but they do not collect any personal data from your computer; or

- Persistent cookies: a persistent cookie is stored as a file on your computer and it remains there when you close your web browser. The cookie can be read by the website that created it when you visit that website again. We use persistent cookies for our Analytics.

Cookies can also be categorised as follows:

- Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential to enable you to use the website effectively, such as when making an online enquiry, and therefore cannot be turned off. Without these cookies, the services available to you on our website cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing purposes or remembering where you have been on the internet.

- Performance cookies: These cookies enable us to monitor and improve the performance of our website. For example, they allow us to count visits, identify traffic sources and see which parts of our site are most popular.

- Functionality cookies: These cookies allow our website to remember choices you make and provide enhanced features. For instance, we may be able to provide you with news or updates relevant to the services you use. They may also be used to provide services you have requested such as viewing a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect is usually anonymised.

- Advertising cookies: They record your visit to our website and what you have looked at. We then use this information to make all our communications to you more relevant to what you are interested in, for instance sending you an email. We share this information with advertising partners to limit the number of times you see ads, ensure the content you see is relevant to you and measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns

THIRD PARTY COOKIES

We also use third-party cookies to allow some of our website functions, for example, our social media feeds, re-marketing and advertising space. Other than allowing the third-party cookies to be served, we have no part to play in the use of these cookies although we may obtain statistical information from them. We have no access to third-party cookies and third-party organisations have no access to ours. The third-party cookies we serve have their own strict privacy policies, which we encourage you to view.

HOW TO DISABLE COOKIES

Cookies are used by nearly all websites and do not harm your system.

If you want to check or change what types of cookies you accept, this can usually be altered within your browser settings. You can block cookies at any time by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

CHANGES TO THIS COOKIE POLICY

We may need to make updates to this cookie policy if we need to change or add any functions to help make our website function better. We will not send out automatic updates for this policy, so be sure to check back here should you need to familiarise yourself with cookies and how we use them. Thank you.