Manage your preferences
You can accept all optional cookies, reject all optional cookies, or choose analytics and marketing preferences separately at any time.
1. What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work, improve navigation speed, keep sessions secure, and provide aggregated analytics to site administrators.
Cookies set by the site owner (us) are called "first-party cookies". Cookies set by other parties are called "third-party cookies". Third-party cookies enable external features or analytics integrations on the Website.
2. The Categories of Cookies We Use
Essential / Strictly Necessary
Always onRequired for core website security, CSRF protection, form validation, and consent settings. Without these cookies, the website cannot perform basic operational tasks. Consent is not required to deploy these cookies under UK regulations.
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Type / Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| __csrf_token | Prevents Cross-Site Request Forgery on contact and business submissions. | Session |
| cookie-consent | Stores your cookie preferences (essential, analytics, marketing) to avoid showing the banner repeatedly. | Persistent (12 months) |
Analytics / Measurement
Cookieless or optionalPrivacy-preserving cookieless statistics measure visitor volumes, page views, referral sources, broad locations, page engagement, scroll depth and key interactions. They use daily rotating server-side identifiers and do not store an IP hash or raw user agent. If you allow analytics cookies, persistent first-party identifiers also support returning-visitor trends and cross-day attribution. Reject optional cookies leaves cookieless statistics active. You can object to all measurement by turning off Cookieless statistics in the preference control.
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Type / Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Identifies unique users to monitor aggregated site traffic. | Persistent (2 years) |
| _ga_* | Used by Google Analytics to persist session state. | Persistent (2 years) |
| bib_vid | Provides a pseudonymous first-party visitor identifier for consent-based page, article, listing, and badge analytics stored in our database. | Persistent (12 months) |
| bib_analytics_visitor and bib_analytics_session | Local and session storage identifiers used to connect consent-based events into anonymous visitor journeys and sessions. | 12 months and browser session |
Marketing / Personalisation
OptionalMarketing cookies allow us to monitor campaign success and transfer appropriate ad engagement signals to Google Ads. They are used to measure the effectiveness of our external digital campaigns and control personalized advertising profiles.
3. Google Consent Mode v2
We comply with the European and UK Google Consent Mode v2 protocols. When you visit Best in Britain, all Google measurement scripts are locked down by default. No analytics or advertising scripts are allowed to read or write local storage flags until we pass explicit consent parameters.
We map your choices directly to Google’s internal variables:
- `analytics_storage`: Granted only if you select "Allow Analytics". Allows tracking of page views and visitor journeys.
- `ad_storage`: Granted only if you select "Allow Marketing". Allows cookie writes for Google advertising.
- `ad_user_data`: Granted only if you select "Allow Marketing". Authorises passing user identification parameters to Google services.
- `ad_personalization`: Granted only if you select "Allow Marketing". Authorises personalized ad conversions.
If you choose "Reject optional cookies", all four Google parameters remain in a denied state while limited first-party cookieless statistics remain active. Turning off Cookieless statistics stops first-party statistical measurement. Vercel Web Analytics operates independently. Essential form processing and security controls continue to operate.
4. Managing Cookies via Browser Controls
You can also manage, clear, or block cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Keep in mind that blocking all cookies (including essential ones) can cause websites to lose state, log out, or fail to process form submissions.
To manage cookies in your browser, visit the official support page for your application: