Cookies

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small piece of text that can be stored on your computer, phone or whatever device you use to surf the Internet by the websites you visit. Cookies have many uses, but fundamentally they are used to store information about you. You can find out more information about cookies at aboutcookies.org.

What cookies do we use?

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the program we use to collect statistics from our website to show us how visitors use our site. We use the information to create reports and to help us to constantly improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

 Name of cookie     How long does it stay on my machine?
 __utma 2 years
 __utmb 30 minutes
 __utmc Until you close your browser
 __utmz 6 months

Further information is available available about Google Analytics cookies, and Google even offer an ‘opt-out’ plugin if you don’t want to accept their cookies.

Session cookie

Our site uses a session cookie which is essential for the site to function properly. By this point, the cookie will already have been set. You may delete and block all cookies from our site, but this may cause it to stop working properly.

 Name of cookie How long does it stay on my machine?
 PHPSESSID 20 minutes or until you close your browser

How do I control which cookies are allowed?

You can use your internet browser’s options to set the level of cookies your machine will accept. Instructions are provided below – please click the link for the browser you use.