Cookie policy

The short version

This site stores your cookie choice, and a note that you have already seen the event pop-up so it does not keep appearing. There are no advertising cookies, no analytics, and nothing that tracks you from one site to another.

Declining costs you nothing except the service area map on the demo sites. Every other part of every site works exactly the same either way.

What a cookie actually is

A small file a website asks your browser to keep, so it can recognise you next time. Some are necessary, like remembering you are logged in. Most of the ones people object to are set by advertising companies to follow you between sites and build a picture of you. This site has none of the second kind.

What this site stores

Name	What it does	How long
gw-cookie-consent	Remembers whether you accepted or declined, so the banner stops asking. It is kept in your browser's local storage rather than as a cookie, which means it is never sent to my server. I cannot see it.	Until you clear your browser data
gw-event-seen	Remembers that you have closed or answered the event pop-up, so it does not appear on every page. Also kept in your browser, never sent to my server.	If you accepted: until you clear your browser data. If you declined or have not chosen: only until you close the tab.

That is the complete list. If you decline, nothing is kept beyond your visit except the choice itself.

What loads from other companies

Google Fonts, always

The typefaces come from Google's font service. Google does not set a cookie for this, but your browser has to fetch the files, and that request carries your IP address to a server in the United States. There is no way to load a hosted font without that happening.

This is treated as necessary for the site to display as intended, so it loads regardless of your choice. If that bothers you, the fonts can be self-hosted instead, and on a client site I will do that on request.

Google Maps, only if you accept

Some of the demo sites show a service area map. Google Maps does set cookies, several of them, and Google can use them for advertising purposes.

Set by	Roughly what for	How long
NID	Google preferences and, on some services, ad personalisation	About 6 months
CONSENT	Records your Google-level consent state	Up to 2 years
Various _ga style	Google's own measurement of its map product	Up to 2 years

Google controls these, not me, and the exact set changes over time. Because of that, the map does not load at all unless you accept. Decline and you get a plain panel describing the area covered instead. A map is a convenience, not something worth handing your data over for without being asked.

What Google does with them is described in their own cookie policy.

Changing your mind

Clearing your browser's site data for this domain removes the stored choice, and the banner will ask again next time you visit.

• Chrome: Settings, Privacy and security, Third-party cookies, See all site data
• Safari: Settings, Privacy, Manage Website Data
• Firefox: Settings, Privacy & Security, Cookies and Site Data

You can also block or delete cookies entirely in your browser settings. Nothing on this site breaks if you do.

Why the banner exists at all

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, a UK site must ask before storing anything non-essential on your device, and refusing has to be as easy as agreeing.

Most sites bury the decline option, grey it out, or put it two clicks away behind "manage preferences". Here, Accept and Decline are the same size and sit next to each other, because that is the point of asking.