Cookie Policy

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 clicking the ‘I’m Ok with this’ button and continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. If you no longer consent to us using non-essential cookies click here to find out how to manage/turn off your cookies.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer.

Our legal grounds for using cookies:

Some cookies Essential Cookies we have to use in order to provide the site and the services we offer. These cookies are used on the basis that their use is in our legitimate interest bearing in mind your own interests. We do not need your consent to use these cookies although you can object to their use, our site will not work if you do.

Other Cookies such as functionality cookies are used to remember information you give us such as your name. The cookies are retained on the basis that they are necessary for the purpose of us entering into an agreement with you. We will delete the cookies when it is no longer necessary for us to keep them. This is usually done after two years. We do not need your consent to use these cookies although you can object to their use.

Other cookies such as targeting cookies and analytical and performance cookies are used for analytical and marketing purposes. These cookies are used with our consent. If you no longer consent to us using these cookies you can withdraw your consent using your browser settings.

If you agree to us using cookies they will contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use cookies for the following reasons:

Essential 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, such as Google, 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	Name	Purpose	Expiry
Analytical	_ga	Generates data in relation to visitors to the web site	2 Years
Analytical	_gat	Used by Google analytics to throttle request rate	Immediate on leaving site
Analytical	_gid	Generates data in relation to visitors to the web site	Immediate on leaving site
Marketing	Collect	Used to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor’s device and behaviour. Tracks the visitor across devices and marketing channels.	Immediate on leaving site
Marketing	NID	Registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user’s device. The ID is used for targeted ads through Google.	6 Months

 

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.

How to Control Cookies

You can block non essential 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.

What happens if I say ‘no’ to allowing non essential cookies in my browser?

The website will still work and you will be able to get the information you need from the site but some functions may not work or work as well as they would with cookies.

What is the impact for us ?

We use Analytical Cookies to count the number of people who use the site and to analyse how they use it. We do this to make sure that our sites are as good as they can be and this is the primary evidence we use when trying to improve what we offer to users.

If you decline cookies then your site usage won’t be counted and measured in this way so we won’t be able to take your actions into account when analyse data and seeking to improve our service based on that analysis.

For further details, see aboutcookies.org