Cookie Policy

1. What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile phone (referred to here as a “device”) browser from a website’s computer and is stored on your device’s hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other websites. Many websites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows (statistics).

On our website, cookies record information about your online preferences and allow us to tailor the websites to your interests. Users have the opportunity to set their devices to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised features cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly they may not be able to take full advantage of all of the website’s features. Each browser is different, so check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

During the course of any visit to our website, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your device. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the device (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

2. How Do We Use Cookies?

Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse the profile of our visitors and help us to provide you with a better user experience. For example, if on a previous visit you went to our services pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight service information on your second and subsequent visits.

3. How to Reject Cookies?

A list of the main cookies that may be used on this website (and what each is used for) together with ways to minimise the number of cookies you receive can be found later.

4. How to Control and Delete Cookies

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our website, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of  websites.

If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You’ll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

5. Third Party Cookies

Please note that during your visits to our website you may notice some cookies that are not related to us. When you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Flickr, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the third party websites for more information about these.

6. Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics sets a cookie in order to evaluate your use of website(s) and compile reports for us on website activity.

Google stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

For more information on the cookie set by Google Analytics, including information on how to opt out please go to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

7. List of the Main Cookies

This is a list of the main cookies that may be set by the our website, and what each is used for:

The __utma Cookie

This cookie is what’s called a “persistent” cookie, as in, it never expires (technically, it does expire…in the year 2038). This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site according to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. Google Analytics uses the information from this cookie to calculate statistics such as visits per day.

The __utmb and __utmc Cookies

The B and C cookies work together to calculate how long a visit takes. __utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site, while __utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site. __utmb expires at the end of the session. __utmc waits 30 minutes, and then it expires.

The __utmz Cookie

__utmz keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine they used, what link they clicked on, what keyword they used, and where they were in the world when they accessed a website. It expires in 15,768,000 seconds – or, in 6 months. This cookie is how Google Analytics knows to whom and to what source / medium / keyword to assign the credit for a Goal Conversion.