Cookies
We want to make our services as easy-to-use and reliable as possible.
When services are delivered online this sometimes means that small pieces of information are placed on your computer or phone. Some of these are called cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
We use the information from cookies to help improve our websites and some features such as our online forms and Locate it will only work with cookies switched on.
These are the cookies we use on our website:
Compliance cookies
These are used to store your cookie preferences. No personal information is collected about you or about your computer
Analytics cookies
These let us recognise and count the number of visitors to our website, and to see how they move around the site. This helps us to improve the website and the services we provide. No personal information is collected about you or about your computer.
We collect the following:
- _utma
- _utmb
- _utmc
- _utmz
Third party cookies
We use a number of social media tools and external applications such as the planning portal, Locate it and the Housing repairs service. If you already use these tools their cookies may be set through our website. If you don't use them our site will not place these cookies on your computer or phone.
We can't control how third parties use their cookies but for more information on some of the external sites we use see the following:
Functional cookies
These are used when filling out online forms and using Locate it (stores search history). They do not contain any personal information and for the most part are automatically deleted when you close your browser. These are required to make the website work properly so we consider these necessary to provide our web services.
We collect the following:
- TestCookie - tests your browser to make it accepts cookies and is removed when you leave the site
- PHPSESSID - stores your session ID. Session data is also stored when you fill out forms but this is stored on the server and not in the cookie. This is removed when you leave the site.
Blocking cookies
If you want to block cookies you should follow the instructions for the browser that you use:
If you want to opt out of Google Analytics use the Google Analytics Opt-out tool.
For more information on cookies see the Information Commissioner's Office website.
If you would like information on how to manage cookies yourself, see Internet cookies: what they are and how to use them on Direct Gov's website.