A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your computer, mobile device or other equipment (your device) when you visit a website. A cookie allows a website to recognise your device and store information about your preferences or activity.

We use the following types of cookies. 

Strictly necessary cookies

These are cookies that are essential for the operation of our site. 

Functional cookies

These are used to recognise you when you return to our site. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

Analytical/performance cookies

These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous.

The cookies we use may be either: "session cookies" (temporary cookies that expire when you close the web browser on your device); or "persistent cookies" (which remain on your device for a set period of time after you have visited a website or until you delete them).

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them below.

Strictly necessary and functional cookies

We use the Expression Engine content management system on our site, which sets a number of cookies.

exp_csrf_token

This cookie protects against Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim’s browser to send a forged HTTP request, including the victim’s session cookie and any other automatically included authentication information, to a vulnerable web application. This allows the attacker to force the victim’s browser to generate requests the vulnerable application thinks are legitimate requests from the victim.

exp_tracker

This is a session cookie that remains in the internet browser’s folder of your computer until you close the browser. It tracks the last 5 pages viewed by the user and is typically used for form or error message returns.

exp_last_visit

This cookie remains in your browser for one year and contains the date of the user’s last visit to the site.

exp_last_activity

This cookie remains in your browser for one year and records the time of the last page load. It is used in conjunction with the exp_last_visit cookie.

exp_sessionid

This is a session cookie that remains in the internet browser’s folder of your device until you close the browser. It generates a unique ID that is used when cookie and session are set as the session type. Used only for logged in members.

Analytical / performance cookies

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics tool, to generate statistical and other information about how visitors use our site. Google Analytics uses cookies to track visitor interactions. 

You can find out further information about how these cookies are used on Google’s Privacy site. https://www.support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245

You can control cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site. 

For further information about cookies and how to control them please go to the Information Commissioner’s webpage on cookies: http://www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/

Any changes we make to this policy in the future will be posted on this page. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our policy.

This was policy was last updated on 5 October 2017