Cookie policy

About cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by the websites you visit. Cookies allow us to identify you (or, more accurately, your computer) when you visit our website. Knowing how often people are visiting each page of our website helps us work out how and where to improve our website.

Our website uses a mix of necessary and non-essential (performance and functional) cookies. While the essential cookies are needed to make the site function properly, you can set your preferences for the non-essential cookies by using our cookie preferences tool (CookieControl). This will appear automatically the first time you visit our site or if you open up our site in a private web browser. You can also find it at any point by clicking the icon in the bottom left of the screen.

This cookie policy is part of our privacy policy.

Types of cookies

There are different categories of cookies:

Necessary cookies help make our website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation, security, and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies and you cannot disable these cookies through the preference settings on our site. You can disable these by changing your browser settings, though this will result in some parts of our website not working.

Functional cookies enable us to enhance the functionality of our website, for example by providing you with embedded content like event videos or newsletter sign-up features. You can disable these cookies through the preference settings on our site or your browser settings, however this may result in some parts of the website not working properly.

Performance or analytics cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously. They help us to improve the performance of our website. These cookies will not be enabled unless you have consented to this.

Persistent cookies and session cookies

Persistent cookies remain on a visitor’s device for a set amount of time. This means for example that we can identify when a site visitor is a repeat visitor or new to us.

Session cookies are created temporarily and last for as long as your browser window is open, being automatically deleted after you close your browser. These allow us to link the actions of a user during a visit to the website, to provide a consistent experience.

First party cookies and third-party cookies

First-party cookies are set directly by our website.

Third-party cookies are set by another website, usually because we have incorporated elements from those other sites into our site (for example videos or sign-up forms).

The cookies we use

Details about the cookies we use are set out below. Some of these are third-party cookies.

CookieControl This cookie records a user’s preferences for analytics and functional cookies and remembers if you have set your cookie preferences on our site.

Google Analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics to monitor the use and performance of our website.

  • _ga This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It expires in 2 years.
  • _ga_<container-id> This cookie is used to maintain session state and track activity across page requests. It expires in 2 years.

Cloudflare cookies

__cf_bm Placed on devices to identify and manage automated bot traffic and protect the site from security threats. It expires in 30 minutes.

cf_clearance Used to store proof that a user has successfully passed a security check or challenge. It expires in up to 1 year.

Third party cookies

This website uses cookies provided by other organisations to support functions such as statistical performance analysis and rich media functionality. These are third party cookies. You can read privacy policies from these third parties below:

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Control your cookie settings

If you want, you can block cookies by changing the settings on your browser - we have set out below links to the help pages of some major browsers which explain how you can do this. Blocking the cookies we use may have an adverse impact on the presentation of some or all of our website. General guidance on how to manage your cookies can be found here:

Your Online Choices

Specific guidance on how to manage cookie options for common website browsers can be found here:

  • Google Chrome
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Apple Safari
  • Microsoft Edge