Cookie Statement
Information about our use of cookies
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.
We use the following cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.
- Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
- Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:
| Cookie Type | Cookie Name | Purpose | EXPIRY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strictly Necessary cookies | PHPSESSID | Preserves user session state across page requests | At end of session |
| Performance Cookies | _ga | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. | 2 years |
| _gid | This cookie name is asssociated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. | 24 hours | |
| _gat | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, according to documentation it is used to throttle the request rate – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. It expires after 10 minutes. | 10 Minutes | |
| Functionality | _utma _utmb _utmc _utmv _utmz |
These Google Analytics cookies are used to collect anonymous information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile analytical reports which help us improve our website. The cookies collect information such as the number of visitors to our website, how they arrived there (e.g. directly from the internet or through linking from another website) and tracking which webpages they visited. | _utma: 2 years _utmb: 30 Mins _utmc: Session _utmv: 2 years _utmz: 6 Month |
| Targeting | Datr | The Facebook cookie datr is used when a web browser accesses facebook.com (except social plugin iframes), and the cookie helps us identify suspicious login activity and keep users safe. | Unknown |
| fr | Facebook Cookie used for advertising purposes | Unknown | |
| Lu | The lu cookie is a Facebook cookie that helps protect people using public computers. The data it contains is used to make subtle changes to the login form, such as prefilling your email address and unchecking the “Keep me logged in” option if we detect multiple users signing in with the same browser. If you log out, this cookie does not contain your user id and Facebook will not prefill the email field. | Unknown | |
| SID, SAPISID, APISID, SSID, HSID, NID, PREF |
Google set a number of cookies on any page that includes a Google Map. While we have no control over the cookies set by Google, they appear to include a mixture of pieces of information to measure the number and behaviour of Google Maps users. | Session cookies |
[Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies]
You can block cookies 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.