What cookies are, why we use them, how you can manage them and what we do with the information.
Update cookie preferences
You can control some of the cookies our website sets through the options available on our cookie banner.
If you would like to change your preferences, you can use the button below to relaunch the banner.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files downloaded by your web browser and stored on your computer, smart phone or tablet as you visit websites.
How can cookies help a website?
Cookies help a website to operate correctly and aid user experience, and they are used by most websites. They have many purposes, including:
- allowing a website to ‘remember’ you and your preferences, such as the font size, during visits
- storing information, such as the items you have put in your online shopping basket
- enabling the collection of analytical data that website owners can use, such as how many times a web page has been viewed
- operating ‘targeted’ advertising.
Different types of cookie
- Persistent cookies - These are stored on your device for a defined period of time.
- First party cookies - These are set by the website you are visiting and can only be accessed and used by that website.
- Third party cookies - These are set through a website by a party other than the one that owns the website, usually through applications or functions created by other companies that a website may implement on its pages. The importance of third party cookies is that they can be used to track users across websites.
Learn more about cookies
How to disable or enable cookies
You can use your internet browser (for example, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox) to manage cookies across all websites you use. This includes being able to block and delete cookies.
The website Aboutcookies.org.uk provides instructions on how to manage cookies.
If you are using your browser’s settings to block or delete cookies, whilst you will still be able to use our site you may encounter some issues.
Our use of cookies
What types of cookie does Growing Sussex use?
- Necessary – Always Active – Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
- Functional – Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
- Analytics – Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
- Performance – Performance cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
- Advertisement – Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customised advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyse the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this involves the use of cookies.
The cookies we use cannot be used to identify you personally.
Our use of cookies:
- helps us to make sure our site operates correctly and efficiently
- provides accessibility and functionality
- collects usage statistics that allow us to monitor how our site is used so that we can improve it.
The table below shows session cookies used across growingsussex.org.uk.
| Cookie | Description | Expiry |
| Cookieyes-consent | CookieYes sets this this cookie to remember users’ consent preferences so that their preferences are respected on subsequent visits to this site. It does not collect or store any personal information about the site visitors | 1 year |
rc::a | This cookie is set by the Google reCAPTCHA service to identify bots and protect the website against malicious spam attacks. | Never Expires |
rc::c | This cookie is set by the Google reCAPTCHA service to identify bots and protect the website against malicious spam attacks. | Session |
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics (GA), a web analysis service from Google, to help us collect site use statistics. The following performance cookies related to this service may be set:
| Cookie | Description | Expiry |
| _ga | Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors. | 1 year 1 month 4 days |
| _ga_* | Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views. | 1 year 1 month 4 days |
Google Analytics uses first party cookies through our website to collect information about how visitors interact with our websites. This information is sent to Google and is analysed by us to evaluate how our websites are being used and how they can be improved.
Google Analytics doesn’t identify who you are, but does track your movements on our websites.
You can find out more about the cookies Google Analytics sets on its cookie usage page.
You can also read Google’s overview of safeguarding data.
Google provide a browser-based tool that you can install and use to opt out of all GA data collection. You can install it from their Google Analytics opt-out page.
You can also prevent Google Analytics from running when you visit our website by deselecting the ‘performance’ option on our cookie banner.
Third parties
We use a variety of third party functions and applications to enrich and improve our content. While we try to limit the setting of cookies by these applications where possible, some cookies are unavoidable. Where these third party services are used on the website they may also receive the IP address of the device you are using.
Below is an outline of third party functionality used across our websites and how to find out more information.
YouTube
- We embed our video content using YouTube. Information on how this website uses cookies can be found on Google’s privacy pages. We have used YouTube’s ‘no-cookie’ domain to stream videos on our site. This means that cookies will only be set by YouTube if you elect to play the video.
Google reCAPTCHA
- We use Google reCAPTCHA on our feedback forms to prevent spam. Information on how Google uses cookies can be found on the Google privacy pages.
Sharing buttons
- Most of our web pages feature buttons to allow you to share the content on social media. Using these buttons will take you to the relevant social media website, which may set cookies.