Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site Coordination Unit
(WHS Coordination Unit)

1.1 Introduction

The WHS Coordination Unit supports the Stonehenge and Avebury WHS Partnership.

The WHS Coordination Unit is hosted by Wiltshire Council, and the staff are employed by Wiltshire Council. Wiltshire Council is the Data Controller and is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Full details of the registration are available at Wiltshire Council | ICO.

The WHS Coordination Unit is collectively referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice.

The website www.stonehengeandaveburywhs.org is managed by the WHS Coordination Unit. This privacy notice gives you information about how your data is collected and used through your use of this website and any correspondence with the WHS Coordination Unit via email or post. The notice outlines our commitment to transparency in handling your personal data, ensuring our practices align with the latest data protection legislation.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the information set out in the contact details.

2.1 Data collection

Personal data is information that relates to or can identify a living individual. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Identity Data this can include first name, last name, title and gender.
• Contact Data this can include address, email address and telephone number.

2.2 Legal Basis for Processing

Our processing shall be lawful because at least one of the following will apply:

• Legitimate interests:  where processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data. This website and service is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
• Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose.

2.3 Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal data.

Purpose: To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, customer relationships and experiences and to measure the effectiveness of our communications and marketing

Purpose: To respond to correspondence from members of the public submitted by email or post.

2.4 Data sharing and disclosure

Where necessary and lawful, we may share your personal data where necessary with the third parties set out below for the purposes set out in ‘2.3 Purposes for which we will use your personal data’ above.

• UK-based third parties:
  • Our website provider: Resolution Design Ltd. Their Privacy Statement is available to view here.
  • Managed Cloud hosting: Cloudways LLC
  • CookieYes
• US-based third parties:
  • IMAP email accounts: Rackspace

We will strive to ensure that any personal data in our care will be kept safe and that where your information is disclosed to a third party, we will seek to ensure that the third party has sufficient systems and procedures in place to prevent the loss of personal data.

2.5 Third-party links

Our website includes links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

2.6 Cookies

This site uses cookies which are small, anonymous information files stored on your computer. Some of the cookies set by our website are essential to provide you with certain functions you may need or want on the website. We also use some of this information to learn about the user experience on our website and to improve it where possible. Other cookies may be set by third party services which we include in our website for your convenience. Please note that by disabling or deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our website. For more information, please refer to our Cookie Policy in section 3.0.

2.7 Cookies set by third party websites

Some third-party services we include in our website to improve your experience set their own third-party cookies when you visit a page. These cookies are specific to the third party’s domain, therefore the data held in them can be seen and managed by the third party and not by us. We control if and how we use the third-party service on our website, and how it is presented. We do not have control over the cookies themselves.

We may embed videos from YouTube and news feeds from other websites to enhance the user experience of our website. These third-party websites place cookies on your device when watching or viewing these pages.

2.8 Retention Period

We will process your personal data for the above purposes for no longer than necessary.

3.1 What are cookies?

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are and how our website uses them, the types of cookies we use i.e., the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to manage the cookie settings.

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help make our website function properly, make it more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyse what works and where it needs improvement.

3.2 How do we use cookies?

As with most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, and to help speed up your future interactions with our website.

3.3 Types of Cookies we use

CookieYes will confirm website cookies for users and categorise them accordingly. This will include:

Necessary: necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

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.

3.4 Cookie settings

You can change your cookie preferences any time while using the website by clicking the CookieYes icon. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. Listed below are the links to the support documents on how to manage and delete cookies from the major web browsers.

Chrome: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050

Safari: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/safari/sfri11471/mac

Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/clear-cookies-and-site-data-firefox?redirectslug=delete-cookies-remove-info-websites-stored&redirectlocale=en-US

Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-delete-cookie-files-in-internet-explorer-bca9446f-d873-78de-77ba-d42645fa52fc

If you are using any other web browser, please visit your browser’s official support documents.

4.1 Your rights

You have several rights concerning your data, including access, correction, and deletion. Your rights are set out in the current Data Protection legislation and includes:

• the right to access your personal information, to request rectification or erasure of certain personal information and to object to processing in certain circumstances.
• the right to withdraw any consent you may have given to process your personal information.
• the right to complain to the Information Commissioner if you feel we are processing your personal information unlawfully.

4.2 Exercising your rights

You hold the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe that the handling of your personal data breaches data protection regulations Make a complaint | ICO (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/). For further details on your rights and how to exercise them, contact [email protected].

5.1 Data Controller

The WHS Coordination Unit is hosted by Wiltshire Council, and the staff are employed by Wiltshire Council. Wiltshire Council is the Data Controller, and is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Full details of the registration are available at Wiltshire Council | ICO.

5.2 Data Protection Officer

At all times, the WHS Coordination Unit will comply with the legal requirements set out by the current Data Protection legislation in relation to the collection, holding and processing of your personal data. WHS Coordination Unit staff are employed by Wiltshire Council. If you have any inquiries or concerns regarding the processing of your personal data, you can contact Wiltshire Council’s Data Protection Officer at: [email protected]

5.3 Further information

If you would like more information or have any concerns about how your data is being processed, please email [email protected] or write to Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site Coordination Unit, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 3QN.

6.0 Changes to this notice

The WHS Coordination Unit will periodically review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services, as well as to comply with changes in the law.

6.1 Record of changes

This privacy notice was last updated: December 2025
Previous versions of this notice will be published so that you can clearly see any changes.