Cookie Policy

Last updated: 29 September 2026

1. What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work, work more efficiently, and to provide information to the site owner. This site also uses a small amount of similar local storage in your browser for the same purpose as a cookie: remembering a choice you've made.

2. How We Ask For Your Consent

When you first visit HB Driving School's website, a banner appears offering three choices, each equally easy to select: Accept All, Reject Non-Essential, or Cookie Settings (to choose category-by-category). Nothing outside the Essential category described below is set until you make a choice, and non-essential cookies never load or fire before you've given the relevant permission.

You can change or withdraw your consent at any time by selecting Cookie Settings in the footer of any page on this site.

3. Essential Cookies

Always active, because the site cannot work properly without them. On this site, that is limited to:

• Cookie consent preference — stored in your browser's local storage so we remember your cookie choice and don't ask again on every page. This does not track you and contains no personal information, just your Accept/Reject choice per category.

4. Analytics Cookies

Optional, and off by default. Analytics cookies would help us understand how visitors use the site (e.g. which pages are popular) so we can improve it. HB Driving School does not currently run Google Analytics or any other analytics service on this website. This category, and the toggle for it in Cookie Settings, exists ready for if that changes in future — until then, choosing to allow Analytics has no practical effect, as there is nothing in this category to activate.

5. Advertising Cookies & Google Ads

Optional, and off by default. HB Driving School runs Google Ads to advertise our driving lessons, and uses Google's conversion tracking to measure when a website visit from one of our ads leads to an enquiry (for example, clicking “Book Your Lesson” or submitting our contact form). This is implemented using Google's own gtag.js tag together with Google Consent Mode: while Advertising consent is not given, Google's tag is told to withhold advertising cookies (technical parameters ad_storage, ad_user_data and ad_personalization are all set to “denied”), so no advertising cookie is set and no personally identifiable conversion data is shared with Google Ads for your visit. Only once you switch Advertising on in Cookie Settings (or select Accept All) does Google's tag receive permission to set advertising cookies and record conversions normally — commonly including a cookie named _gcl_au, used by Google to link an ad click to a later conversion.

6. Managing Your Preferences

You are in control of every non-essential cookie category on this site:

• Select Cookie Settings in the footer of any page, at any time, to open the preferences panel.
• Switch Analytics and/or Advertising on or off individually, and select Save Preferences.
• Or use the quick Accept All / Reject Non-Essential options, available both on first visit and inside the settings panel.

You can also control cookies more broadly through your browser settings, including deleting cookies already stored on your device — see your browser's help documentation for how.

7. Other Third-Party Services

A small number of other third-party services are used on this site. They are described fully in our Privacy Policy, and do not rely on the Analytics or Advertising consent categories above:

• Formspree — processes our contact/booking form submissions; this is essential to the form functioning and is not a tracking cookie.
• Google Fonts — loads the typefaces used on this site.
• Google Maps — displays our Manchester service area on the Contact page.

8. Questions

If you have any questions about this Cookie Policy, contact us at hbdrivingschool@hotmail.com or 07858 214926.