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Cookies policy
This policy explains what cookies are, which cookies this website uses, why we use them, and how you can change or withdraw your consent. It should be read alongside our privacy policy.
1. What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make sites work, to remember your preferences, and to provide information to the site owner. Similar technologies (such as pixels and browser storage) work in much the same way, and references to “cookies” in this policy include those technologies.
2. How we ask for your consent
Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and the UK GDPR, we may place strictly necessary cookies without your consent, but we must ask before setting analytics or advertising cookies.
In practice, on this site:
- Analytics and advertising are off by default. Nothing in either category runs until you actively turn it on — not switched on and then disabled, but not loaded at all.
- On your first visit we show a banner with Accept all and Reject all as equally prominent, single-click buttons, plus Manage preferences if you want to allow one category but not the other.
- The banner stays until you choose, and while it is showing nothing in either category is enabled. If you leave without choosing, we ask again next time.
- You can change or withdraw your choice at any time — see section 5.
3. The categories we use
| Category | Purpose | Consent needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Serving the pages you ask for, and remembering the cookie choice you made so we do not keep asking. These cannot be switched off. | No |
| Analytics / performance | Help us understand how visitors use the site (which pages are read, how people move around it) so we can improve it. Where enabled, we use Google Analytics 4. | Yes — off unless you turn it on |
| Advertising | Would allow advertising and ad-measurement cookies. We do not currently serve advertising on this site; the category exists so that your choice is already recorded, and respected, if we ever introduce it. | Yes — off unless you turn it on |
4. The cookies you may encounter
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
fh_consent | This site (first party) | Records the cookie choice you made: whether you allowed analytics, whether you allowed advertising, the date and time you chose, and a version number so that if we ever add a new category we ask you again rather than assuming your old answer covers it. That is the whole contents — no name, no email address and no identifier for you. | 180 days from the moment you choose, then we ask again |
_ga | Google Analytics | Distinguishes individual visitors. Only set if you have allowed analytics and Google Analytics is enabled on this site. | 2 years |
_ga_<container-id> | Google Analytics | Persists session state for Google Analytics 4. Same condition as _ga. | 2 years |
The _ga names, purposes and 2-year default durations above are Google’s, taken from Google’s “Cookie usage” documentation (checked 5 August 2026). If you have not allowed analytics — because you have not chosen yet, because you rejected it, or because analytics is not enabled on the site you are reading — neither cookie is set and no request is made to Google at all: the Google tag is never added to the page in the first place. If you allowed analytics and then turned it off, the tag was already running, and section 5 explains exactly what we do about that.
5. Changing or withdrawing your consent
Withdrawing consent must be as easy as giving it, so the control is on every page of this site:
- Use the Cookie preferences link in the footer of any page. It reopens the same panel the banner uses, with your current choices already ticked.
- Or use the button below.
Turning a category off takes effect immediately. If you turn analytics off after having allowed it, the Google tag is already loaded into the page you are on, so simply telling it that consent has been withdrawn is not enough. A loaded Google tag whose analytics consent is withdrawn stops reading and writing cookies, but Google’s own documentation is explicit that it can still send data to Google (see Google’s consent-signal reference, checked 6 August 2026). So we also set Google’s own opt-out flag (checked 6 August 2026) for our measurement ID and reload the page. That reload is deliberate and is why the change is real: once the page comes back, the tag is not loaded at all, exactly as if you had rejected analytics from the start.
What we cannot undo is what already happened. Data sent while analytics was switched on has already reached Google, and cookies that a third party has already placed on your device are not deleted by your change of mind — use your browser’s cookie settings (section 7) to clear those.
Deleting the fh_consent cookie in your browser has the same effect as never having chosen: everything non-essential goes back to off, and we ask again on your next visit.
6. Google Consent Mode
Where Google tags are used, we implement Google Consent Mode v2. Before any Google tag can load, this site sets all four consent signals — ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage — to denied. They are only updated to “granted” for the categories you have actually allowed, and allowing analytics never grants any of the three advertising signals.
Consent Mode can be run two ways: with the Google tag loaded on every page from the outset and the consent signals telling it what it is allowed to do, or with the tag not loaded at all until you consent. We use the second. That is what lets section 4 say “no request is made to Google at all” rather than “a request is made, but it carries a denial”, and it is what the reload described in section 5 restores you to.
7. Other ways to control cookies
- Your browser — most browsers let you block or delete cookies through their settings, and that applies to every site, not just this one. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may stop parts of the site working, including our ability to remember your cookie choice.
- Google Analytics opt-out — you can opt out of Google Analytics across all websites by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
For more general guidance on managing cookies, see aboutcookies.org.
8. Do Not Track
Some browsers send a “Do Not Track” signal. There is no agreed industry standard for responding to these signals, so we do not currently respond to them. This makes no practical difference here: analytics and advertising are off unless you switch them on.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this cookies policy from time to time. The “last updated” date above shows the latest revision.
10. Contact us
If you have any questions about our use of cookies, please use our contact page.