Cookies

What is a Cookie?

Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a website. When you visit a site that uses cookies for the first time a cookie is download onto your pc. The next time you visit that site, your computer checks to see if it has a cookie that is relevant and sends the information contained in that cookie back to the site. The site then ‘knows’ you’ve visited before and, in some cases, tailors what pops up on your screen e.g. it will remember your login and preferences, or enable you to resume where you left off.

Why do we use them?

Cookies help our site to run more efficiently. We use cookies to gather information about your visit to our site, such as which are the most popular areas and which pages get read the most. This information allows us to make important changes and improvements to the site to make sure the information and services you need are easy to access.

The cookies our site uses are mostly "session cookies," which means that your preferences, such as your choice of language, are stored temporarily while you move around the site. Session cookies are deleted when you leave the site. They do not contain any personal information about you, and do not hold any information about which sites you went to before visiting this site.

Control your cookies

We would encourage you to accept cookies on our site but if you prefer not to then nearly all web browsers provide you with the option to block cookies. More information about cookies and how to control them can be found About Cookies (external link).

Cookie Name	Expires	Domain	About
Nmstat	568 days	westlancs.gov.uk	Records visitors’ use of the website which is used to help us improve the site. The cookie holds no personal or sensitive information
ASP.NET_SessionId		westlancs.gov.uk	Tracks the sequence of pages a visitor looks at during a visit to the site.
is_returning	1543 days	westlancs.gov.uk	Collects information about where, on the screen, users are clicking on our site. The cookie collects information in an anonymous form.
AltCont	365 days	westlancs.gov.uk	Used with the website's Content Management System controlling which tab to display when visiting the home page.
__utmz	164 days	westlancs.gov.uk	Google Analytics. Tracking service used by a lot of websites to record the visitor’s use of the website. This cookie records how the page was reached.
__utma	730 days	westlancs.gov.uk	Google Analytics. Used to determine the number of unique visitors.
__utmb	Less than one day	westlancs.gov.uk	Google Analytics. This and the next cookie work together to calculate the average length of time users spend on the site.
__utmc	Date not set	westlancs.gov.uk	Google Analytics. Works with the cookie listed above.
Loc Uit Uid Dt Di Uvc psc	78 days 1 day 30 days 730 days	addthis.com	Addthis, a social sharing and targeting platform. It is designed to make it easy for users to share the site
directgovCSADBID directgovCSAuvt	160 days	direct.gov.uk	Cookies set by direct.gov.
c_user datr lu xs act p presence		facebook.com	Cookies set by Facebook.
Rememberme PREF NID HSID APISIDSID	3602 701 155 3648 3648 3648	google.com	Used by Google with the site search.