This policy explains the cookies and similar technologies used on Visit Lyndhurst, what each one does and how you can refuse or delete them.
Last updated: 24 October 2026
What cookies are
Cookies are small text files that a website saves in your browser. Some are needed for a site to work at all. Others count visitors or help choose which adverts to show. Similar technologies, such as your browser’s local storage, work in much the same way, and this policy covers them too.
Strictly necessary cookies
WordPress, the software the site runs on, sets cookies only for the administrators who log in to edit the site. Their names begin with “wordpress_” or “wp-settings-“, and they keep the editor logged in and remember screen settings. If you are just reading the site, you won’t get them.
At the time of writing our contact, listing and newsletter forms don’t set cookies. If a form or security feature ever needs one to work, for example to block spam, it will be strictly necessary and we will list it here. The law does not require your consent for strictly necessary cookies.
Analytics cookies
We use Google Analytics 4 to count visitors and see which pages are read, which tells us which guides to update first. It sets two cookies on our site:
- “_ga”, which tells one visitor apart from another and lasts up to two years;
- a second cookie whose name starts with “_ga_”, which keeps track of your current visit and also lasts up to two years.
These cookies are not needed for the site to work. The information they collect goes to Google, which runs the service. Google says that Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. You can read more on Google’s page about how it uses information from sites that use its services, and the section on refusing cookies below explains how to switch analytics off.
No advertising or preference cookies yet
We don’t use advertising cookies at the moment. We also don’t store your preferences, so nothing is saved in your browser to remember choices you make on the site.
Maps and content from other websites
Our interactive maps load the Leaflet map library from cdnjs.cloudflare.com, run by Cloudflare, and the map images from the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s tile servers at tile.openstreetmap.org. When a map is displayed, your browser sends your IP address and browser details to those services so they can deliver the files. Their own policies apply: see Cloudflare’s privacy policy and the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s privacy policy.
Our fonts are stored on our own server, so we don’t use Google Fonts. The “Directions” buttons on listings and walks link to Google Maps. Nothing is sent to Google until you click one, and Google’s own cookies apply once you are on its site. The same goes for links to business websites: once you leave our site, that website’s cookie policy applies.
Advertising and our consent banner
Visit Lyndhurst is paid for by display advertising, and we plan to start showing adverts, probably through an advertising partner such as Google AdSense or an ad management network. Advertising cookies are not strictly necessary. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), we must ask before using them, so before any are set we will add a consent banner that lets you accept or refuse them. The same banner will cover analytics cookies. When it goes live, we will update this policy to name our advertising partners and list their cookies.
Adverts will always be labelled and kept apart from our guides, and no one can pay to be recommended in an article.
How to refuse or delete cookies
You can stop Google Analytics collecting information about your visits, free of charge, by installing Google’s Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser’s settings; the help pages for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge all explain how.
Blocking cookies won’t stop you reading any page on Visit Lyndhurst. The only thing that needs cookies to work is the administrators’ login.
If anything here isn’t clear, ask us through our contact form.
Changes to this policy
We will update this policy whenever we add, remove or change a cookie, and change the date at the top when we do. For how we handle personal information more generally, read our privacy notice. All our policies are listed on the legal policies page.