Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. This table explains the cookies we use, their Category and why they are used in our site.
Category 1 – Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies enable services you have specifically asked for.
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like shopping baskets, cannot be provided.
Cookie |
Name |
Description |
Expiry |
| Session Cookies | PHPSESSID | This cookie contains a session ID which is a mechanism for distinguishing different users’ visits when multiple users are visiting the website at the same time. It is essential for interactive use of the site. For more information see http://php.net/manual/en/features.sessions.php | On closing the web browser |
Category 2 – Performance Cookies
These cookies collect anonymous information about the pages visited by you.
These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works. By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.
Cookie |
Name |
Description |
Expiry |
| Google Analytics | _utma | This cookie is typically written to the browser upon the first visit to our site from that web browser. If the cookie has been deleted by the browser operator, and the browser subsequently visits our site, a new __utma cookie is written with a different unique ID. This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to our site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that Google Analytics uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure.Click here for an overview of privacy at Google | 2 years from set/update |
| Google Analytics | _utmb | This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with our site. When a user views a page on our site, the Google Analytics code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written and a new session is established. Each time a user visits a different page on our site; this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30-minute intervals. This cookie expires when a user pauses on a page on our site for longer than 30 minutes. | 30 minutes from set/update |
| Google Analytics | _utmc | This cookie is no longer used by the tracking code implemented on this site.Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether or not to establish a new session for the user. For backwards compatibility purposes with sites still using the urchin.js tracking code, this cookie will continue to be written and will expire when the user exits the browser. | 30 minutes from set/update |
| Google Analytics | _utmv | The __utmv cookie allows us to set custom variables e.g. to gain insight as to which particular PDF files have been downloaded or which button on a page a visitor has clicked. | 6 months from set/update |
| Google Analytics | _utmz | This cookie stores the type of referral used by the visitor to reach our site, whether via a direct method, a referring link, a website search, or a campaign such as an ad or an email link. It is used to calculate search engine traffic, ad campaigns and page navigation within our own site. The cookie is updated with each page view to our site. | 6 months from set/update |
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Category 3 – Functionality Cookies
These cookies remember choices you make to improve your experience.
These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. By using these functions on our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.
Cookie |
Name |
Description |
Expiry |
| Comments cookies | comment_author comment_author_email comment_author_url | When visitors comment on our blog, they too get cookies stored on their computer. This is purely a convenience, so that the visitor won’t need to re-type all their information again when they want to leave another comment. | The comments cookies are set to expire a little under one year from the time they’re set. |
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
YouTube cookies
We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode. To find out more please visit YouTube’s embedding videos information page.
web site logging
If you visit our website to browse, read, or download information, we collect and store some “visitor information” from you, such as the name of the domain and host from which you access the Internet, the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using, the date and time you access our website, and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our website. We use this information to measure the traffic on our website and to help us make our website more useful. This information is periodically deleted.