What are cookies, what data do they collect and why do we use them?

A cookie is a small piece of data stored by your web browser on your computer's hard drive. They let us identify your computer when you visit our website, analyse your browsing patterns and build up a picture of how people like to use our website. This helps us to keep improving the service we offer. Even though they let us recognise that that you are a unique user, data provided by cookies is anonymous and cannot be used to identify specific individuals.

Most browsers allow you to turn off cookies. If you wish to do this please look at the help menu on your browser. But remember, switching off cookies may restrict your use, or lower the performance, of this website.


What cookies do we use on this website?

The information collected by our cookies includes a unique ID assigned to your device, your IP address, what device you’re using, the browser and operating system, what content you have viewed and the time and date you viewed it, and also the country and language selected.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics shows us how visitors find and use our website, which helps us to make informed site design and content decisions, with the aim of improving the site experience for you and other visitors. Virtually all websites use this tracking technology, either from Google or another provider.

The Google Analytics cookies on this site are:

This distinguishes users and sessions. It expires after 2 years.

This identifies new sessions and visits. It expires after 30 minutes of inactivity.


This works with _utmb to determine if you are launching a new session and expires when the browser is closed.


This lets us see how you reached our site. This cookie expires after 6 months.

You can read more about Google’s privacy policy by clicking here.