Cookies

This site may utilise (but is not limited to) cookies for social media, language translation, payment portals, subscriptions, form submissions, and interactive maps. Our sites also use analytic cookies to provide you with better content, and cookies to monitor the smooth running of the site.

Why do I see different cookies than my colleague/friend?

• Device Settings: If you use a shared computer (e.g. at work), you may have individual profiles. Your profile may have different settings from those of a colleague who uses the same computer.
• Browser: To provide users with more choice and control over online advertising, browsers have introduced new privacy features over the years.

Most web browsers allow some control of cookies through their settings. Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

• Find out how to enable and disable cookies on every web browser
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Safari on Mac
• Clear history and cookies from Safari on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
• Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome on Android
• Google Analytics also has an opt-out browser add-on

CookieControl provides the widget on this site that enables you to make choices about cookies (the same brand the ICO uses). Any cookie they set is used to remember your choice about cookies on this site, and if you have previously indicated a preference it will be stored in this cookie.

You’ll find it open on your first visit to the site so you can make a choice, and in the bottom left corner thereon after. You can change your cookie preferences by clicking the ‘C’ icon in the bottom left of the screen, and adjusting the available sliders to ‘On’ or ‘Off’. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect.

Functional cookies ensure the proper functioning of the Website. Functional cookies help a website owner to personalise the experience for users (e.g. cookies for login or registration, language preferences).

Read about functional cookies on cookieinformation.com

• cookie_notice_accepted to read if cookies can be placed. Expiration: persistent (source)
• WordPress_test_cookie WordPress cookie to read if cookies can be placed. Expiration: session (source)
• PHPSESSID The PHPSESSID cookie is native to PHP and enables websites to provide functions across pages. It is used to establish a user session and to pass state data via a session cookie. Expiration: session(source)
• SIDCC to provide the identification of trusted web traffic. Expiration: 1 year (source)
• HSID to provide fraud prevention. Expiration: 2 years (source)
• wp_lang WordPress cookie to store language settings. Expiration: session (source)
• _grecaptcha is linked to Google reCAPTCHA, to provide spam protection. Expiration: 6 months (source)
• wordpress_* with unknown functionality. Expiration: 3 months (source)
• wordpress_logged_in_ to Store logged in users. Expiration: persistent. (source)
• wp-settings-* to store user preferences. Expiration: persistent (source)
• wp-settings-time-* to store user preferences. Expiration: 1 year (source)
• wordpress_sec_ to provide protection against hackers and store account details. Expiration: 15 days (source)
• woocommerce_cart_hash to store items in the shopping cart. Expiration: 1 day (source)
• woocommerce_items_in_cart to store items in a shopping cart. Expiration: session (source)
• wp_woocommerce_session_ to store performed actions on the website. Expiration: session (source)

We use analytical information to help us improve the website – for instance, to help promote information that you would probably like to see but haven’t noticed. Where we cannot find information from Google about their cookie, we have linked to websites that appear credible.

• _ga to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier, and expires in 2 years (source)
• _ga_<container-id> Used to persist session state and expires in 2 years (source)
• _gat_* is used to limit the number of user requests in order to maintain a website’s performance, and it expires after 1 day. It does not store any user information (source)
• _gid to store and update a unique value for each page visited, and expires after 1 day (source)
• __utma This cookie is what’s called a “persistent” cookie, as it never expires. This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. Google Analytics uses the information from this cookie to calculate things like Days and Visits to purchase (source)
• __utmb and __utmc work together to calculate how long a visit takes
  • __utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site and expires at the end of a session (source)
  • __utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site – it doesn’t know when a user closes their browser or leaves a website, so it waits 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn’t, it expires (source)
• _utmt stores the number of requests and expires after 10 minutes (source)
• __utmz Google uses it to store used keywords and search engines. It expires in 6 months. (source)
• SSID Google ads optimisation – duration 2 years (source)
• SID Google ads optimisation – duration 2 years (source)
• APISID Google ads optimisation – duration 2 years (source)
• SAPISID Google ads optimisation – duration 2 years (source)
• __Secure-3PAPISID shows personalised adverts, duration 2 years (source)
• __Secure-3PSIDCC Google cookie required to use website options and services – duration 1 year (source)
• __Secure-1PAPISID Used by Google to store user preferences and information when viewing pages with Google Maps on them. Duration 13 months (source)
• UULE Google – shows you results that are relevant to your location – expires in 6 hours (source)
• 1P_JAR Google ads duration one month (source)
• OGPC Unknown. At one time, it was linked to Google Maps. Expiration at least one session (source)
• SOCS – Google consent cookie – to store a user’s state regarding their cookies choices – duration 2 years (source)
• AEC ensure that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites. Duration 6 months (source)
• OGP Activate and track Google Maps functionality (source)
• SEARCH_SAMESITE Browsers use this cookie attribute to identify how First and Third-Party Cookies should be handled. Browsers can either allow or block such cookies depending on the attribute and scenario (source)
• tk_ai used by WooCommerce on a WordPress site. Stored data: anonymous ID. Expiration: session (source) note “…this is only used within the dashboard (/wp-admin) area and is used for usage tracking, if enabled” (source). As such, this appears to only affect admins of the site.

These cookies remember your activities on a website, and last for a session. They contain information which is deleted after the session ends. Unlike other cookies, session cookies are never stored on your device, so they are also known as transient cookies, non-persistent cookies, or temporary cookies.

How long is a session? A session starts when you launch a website or web app and ends when you leave the website or close your browser window.

Read about session cookies on cookieinformation.com

• pmpro_visit Cookies from pmpro are linked to membership of the site (source)
• _cq_duid from UserWay (see below)
• _cq_suid from the UserWay Accessibility tool (found in the bottom right corner on all pages) They said “In regards to cookies, we don’t store any personal data, the widget only saves the session information from the user’s preferences e.g. A blind person who had the screen reader active. Someone with visual issues who set the font to be bigger.”