Cookie Policy

What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit the website. The cookies will help the website recognise your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files can also do the same thing. We use the term “cookies” in this policy to refer to all files that collect information in this way.

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of the website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you use the website and also allows us to improve the services we provide to you.

On revisiting the website, we will be able to obtain information about your previous visits and about your computer including where available, your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration.

This is statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and does not identify you. For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer.

We use the following cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Disabling them may mean you are not able to access parts of our website.
Analytical or performance cookies. We use these cookies to collect information about how visitors use the website, for instance which pages visitors go to most. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. Some of these cookies are known as analytic cookies which allow us to monitor website traffic using industry accepted third parties.
Functionality cookies. These cookies are used to recognise you when you return to our website and to remember changes you have made to things such as text size, fonts and other parts of the website you can change so we can personalise our content for you.

Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but you can change your cookie preferences by adjusting your browser settings to refuse the setting of all or some cookies if you prefer. You can usually do this by visiting the “options” or “preferences” menu on your browser.

Please note, however, that if you do this and choose to block all cookies (including essential cookies) we cannot guarantee that your experience will be as fully functional as it would otherwise be, and you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.

Where we collect personal data as part of our use of cookies on the website, we will do so in accordance with our Privacy Policy as displayed on our website.

How We Use Cookies

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

The Cookies We Set

Email newsletters related cookies

This site offers newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.
Forms related cookies

When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
Site preferences cookies

In order to provide you with a great experience on this site we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences we need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.

Cookies Expiration Dates

We use two types of cookies:

Session (Transient) cookies: These cookies are erased when you close your browser, and do not collect information from your computer. They typically store information in the form of a session identification that does not personally identify the user.

Persistent (Permanent or Stored) cookies: These cookies are stored on your hard drive until they expire (i.e. the are based on a set expiration date) or until you delete them. These cookies are used to collect identifying information about the user, such as Web surfing behavior or user preferences for a specific site.

Third Party Cookies

In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.

This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
Third party analytics are used to track and measure usage of this site so that we can continue to produce engaging content. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site or pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve the site for you.
From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are still testing new features these cookies may be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst on the site whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations our users appreciate the most.
We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work the following social media sites including;
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Instagram
- LinkedIn
- Pinterest
- Google Plus
will set cookies through our site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.

More Information

Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren't sure whether you need or not it's usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site. However, if you do wish to change your cookie settings, please see below for browser options.

How to manage cookies

Mozilla Firefox

Click the orange Firefox button at the top of the window (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options
Select the Privacy panel
From the history drop down select “Use custom settings for history”
Un-check “Accept cookies from sites”
Click OK

Google Chrome

Click on the wrench icon, within Chrome
Select “Settings”
Select “Under the Hood”
Click “Content Settings” in the “Privacy” section
Under the “Cookies” section select “Block sites from setting any data”

Internet Explorer

Click the gear-wheel icon in the top right corner of the browser
Click Internet Options
Navigate to the Privacy Tab
Set the slider to “High” or above
Click OK to confirm

Apple Safari

Click the gear-wheel icon in the top right corner of the browser
Click the “Privacy” icon
Choose “Block cookies” as “Always”
Close window