What is in a cookie?
Cookies are small text files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. Once a cookie is saved on your computer, only the website that created the cookie can read it.
Cookies are generally divided into mandatory and non-essential:
- Mandatory cookies being those needed to progress through site functionality
- Non-essential cookies being used for analytics, cookies from advertisers or third parties, including affiliates and those that identify a user when they returns to the website.
Why are cookies used?
We use cookies to store information about how you use our website and to help provide you with the best browsing experience we can. Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit or for repeat visits.
This site uses a few different types of cookies including some mandatory and non-essential.
Our mandatory cookies:
- Store your preferences on cookies whilst using our site.
- Make our website work as you’d expect.
Our non essential cookies:
- Enable us to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task.
- Improve the speed/security of the site.
- Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook.
- Help us to understand how people are using our website so that we can improve it for you.
- Measure how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure they work correctly and respond quickly.
The law says we must:
- Tell you that the cookies are there
- Explain what the cookies are doing and why
- Get your permission to store a cookie on your device (although we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site)
What cookies are used on this site?
The cookies used on this site are detailed below. Non-essential cookies will only be activated if you have given your consent to all cookies. You can update your cookie preferences at any time on this page.
Essential cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| tx_cookies-consent and tx_cookies-accepted or tx_cookies-disbaled | Stores your cookie preferences. | 1 year |
| fe_typo_user | Stores your user session state for TYPO3's frontend login. | When the browser is closed |
| be_typo_user | Stores your user session state if you are logged in the TYPO3 backend. | When you log out |
| _mcid | Unique visitor and session identifier for Mailchimp’s tracking. | 1 year |
| _mc_anon_id | Anonymous ID for visitors not yet identified via form submission. | When the browser is closed |
Non-essential cookies
These are also refered to as Analytics cookies.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | These help us track user behaviour over time as they visit our site , distinguishing between users. | 2 years |
| _gid | Tracks user behavior across pages during a single session. | 24 hours |
| _ga_KFVFZE28D2 | Google Analytics unique ID for the site to allow tracking. | 1 year |
Links to other sites
All links are provided for information and convenience only. No responsibility is accepted for any content or programs provided or used in any other websites you open from within this website. We cannot provide more information about the cookies these sites use and suggest the reading of their individual cookie policy pages for further information.
More about Cookies
To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit the UK Governements Legislation pages.