What are cookies?

A cookie is a piece of information in the form of a small text file that is generated and set by our website and placed on your computer’s hard drive.

Cookies make your interaction with our website faster and easier. Without cookies, it would be very difficult for our website to remember your preferences or registration details between each web page you use and between each time you visit the site.

They are not computer programs, and they can’t be executed as code. Cookies cannot access any information on your computer – so a cookie cannot read any other information saved there such as your email address for example.  We do not use cookies for identifying shopping habits or targeting advertising.

We use cookies mainly because they save you time and make your browsing experience more efficient and enjoyable. Without cookies you will have to reset your preferences on each page you visit.  We also use cookies to record anonymous statistics on which parts of the website are popular and how many different people visit the site.

To find out more information about cookies generally, visit All About Cookies.

What happens if I allow cookies?

Unless you opt out of cookies, we will set a number of cookies on your computer to assist you when using the website and improve your user experience. With any future visits to our website, you will not be prompted with the notice.

What happens if I decline cookies?

If you do not accept cookies, this will remove all the cookies that are surplus to the basic functionality of this website, and we will not set them again on your machine.  This may affect your user experience.  Unfortunately, because cookies are the only way we have of remembering your preferences, we will have to ask this question on each page you visit; each time you visit our website.

Cookies on our website

We use cookies for a number of reasons on our website, including; keeping any settings you changed for accessibility, counting visitor numbers and counting social sharing numbers. We use the following cookies on our website:

• Google Analytics cookies: _ga, _gid, _gat

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the website. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited.

Read Google’s overview of privacy and safeguarding data

• Cookie

This cookie is used to remember a user’s choice about cookies on this website. Where users have previously indicated a preference, that user’s preference will be stored in this cookie.

• Session Cookies

A session cookie stores your browsing information and is active until you leave the site and close your browser after which it is deleted.