You may already know that, since 26th May 2012, EU law requires websites to display messages to website visitors about cookies, and how they are used.

The law now states that if websites are using certain types of cookies, they must declare that to the website visitor, so that users can make their own decision on whether to allow cookies or not. The vast majority of websites you visit will probably be using cookies for a number of very legitimate reasons. Unfortunately some companies use cookies to track user behaviour in ways that can be considered intrusive.

Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognise your device the next time you visit.

We use cookies on our website. They enable us to identify your device, and enable some advanced website features. They also allow us to analyse how well our website is performing.

We also use cookies to help us to improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better user experience. Like a large percentage of the websites you are likely to visit, we use Google Analytics to collect data on traffic to our website. The data collected includes things like the number of people visiting our site each month, the number of people who came back for a second visit, which pages they looked at, which browser they used etc. Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you specifically, and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use the website, or a user’s general location.

We do not sell the information collected by cookies, nor do we disclose the information to third parties (other than Google, who collect visitor data on our behalf, or if we are required by law).

If you wish to control what cookies are set on your device through our website then you can find out how to do this in the section below.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on our website. However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time.

Controlling Cookies

If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set.

If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which are set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers. You can choose whether to accept cookies that are set by our website on the cookie settings page.

Our website will probably still work without cookies, but you will lose some features and functionality if you choose to disable them.