Cookie notice

Our site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site, some of these cookies are for security purposes or to authenticate you as a genuine user. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. We have highlighted below the type of cookies that we use on our site, what they’ re used for and whether you can Choose to allow them or not.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files (made up of letters and numbers) stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree.  Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.  EU legislation states that all websites should let you know when they are using your cookies.  We use cookies to remember what is in your shopping basket, remember your authentication status and to help us to improve our users’ experience on our site.  This site also uses cookies to help us see which pages our customers like and which are not working so well, so that we can make improvements.

Which cookies we use, and why

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any information which allows us to identify you unless you are logged into your account.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Targeting/advertising Cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly information which allows us to identify you personally but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social Media Cookies 

These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

Strictly necessary

First Party

ASP.NET_SessionId – General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written with Microsoft .NET based technologies. Usually used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server.

__RequestVerificationToken – This is an anti-forgery cookie set by web applications built using ASP.NET MVC technologies. It is designed to stop unauthorised posting of content to a website, known as Cross-Site Request Forgery. It holds no information about the user and is destroyed upon closing the browser.

PHPSESSID – Cookie generated by applications based on the PHP language. This is a general purpose identifier used to maintain user session variables. It is normally a random generated number, how it is used can be specific to the site, but a good example is maintaining a logged-in status for a user between pages.

Performance

First Party

_gid – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This is a new cookie and stores and updates a unique value for each page visited. – one day

_gat – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, according to documentation it is used to throttle the request rate – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. – 2 minutes

_ga – This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the site’s analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners. – 2 years

WT_FPC – Cookie set by WebTrends analytics service, used to track and report on visitor behaviour on a site for performance improvement – 2 years

Targeting/advertising

Third Party

APISID & SSID – This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer’s adverts appear.

PREF – This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer’s adverts appear. This is a common Google cookie, used across several of their services. Stores user preference and can be used to personalise ads on google searches

SID – This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer’s adverts appear. This cookie is used by Google in combination with HSID to verify a Google user account and most recent login time.

SAPISID – This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer’s adverts appear.

HSID – This domain is owned by Google Inc. Although Google is primarily known as a search engine, the company provides a diverse range of products and services. Its main source of revenue however is advertising. Google tracks users extensively both through its own products and sites, and the numerous technologies embedded into many millions of websites around the world. It uses the data gathered from most of these services to profile the interests of web users and sell advertising space to organisations based on such interest profiles as well as aligning adverts to the content on the pages where its customer’s adverts appear. Used by Google in combination with SID to verify Google user account and most recent login time.

If you do not accept the cookies, or choose to block some or all cookies, you will still be able to browse our site however some parts of the site will not work.

For more information on how to manage cookies please visit www.allaboutcookies.org

Changes to this notice

This notice may be changed from time to time. In that case, the ‘last updated’ date at the bottom of this page will also change. Any changes to this privacy notice will apply to you and your data immediately.

Last updated 8 August 2023