What Are Cookies?

Our website along with most other major websites use ‘Cookies’. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer’s hard disk which are used by the majority of websites. We use cookies to monitor how our website is used (performance cookies) so we can improve the user experience. Without ‘Cookies’ enabled we cannot guarantee that your experience whilst visiting the website are as we intended.

Cookies DO

  • Track your browsing habits of our websites.
  • Store information on choices that have been made whilst using the website when navigating from page to page.

Cookies DO NOT

  • Pose a threat of viruses and cannot install malware on your computer.
  • Do not collect personally indentifiable information e.g name and address would never be stored in a cookie.

Which Cookies are we using?

1st Party Cookies

Performance and functional cookies are used on our websites. Performance cookies track site usage; none of which can be traced back to an individual user. Functional cookies are required for the site to work and allow user selections to be remembered when visiting different pages.

What happens if I block 1st Party Cookies?

It is very hard to login anywhere.

3rd Party Cookies

We use Google Analytics (a popular web analytics service provided by Google) on our website to help us analyse how the site is being used, count page visits and monitor traffic. The information is used for internal analysis of the progress of our website, which eventually benefits the user. No personal information can be gained from the use of third party cookies. For more information about the cookies Google Analytics uses please click here.

What happens if I block 3rd Party Cookies?

There are no adverse effects to surfing, however it does affect tracking systems. When people block / delete cookies all visits will still be recorded, but a person who has deleted the cookies will not be recognised as the same (returning) visitor.

When cookies are in place and not blocked or deleted total visitor counts will remain comparatively low. If a person constantly deletes cookies they will be counted as a new “unique” visitor with every subsequent visit.

Consent

By using our website this means that you agree to the use of cookies. We recommend that you allow your machine to accept cookies. However if you would prefer cookies can be turned off. Existing cookies can also be cleared at any time from your machine. Please be aware that by turning off cookies our website may not function correctly and you may not be able to use all the functions of the website.