Ouse Valley Charcoal ("we", "us", "our") is a small charcoal producer based in Harrold, Bedfordshire. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, and the choices you have. It applies to this website and to any order, delivery or enquiry you make with us.

We are a small, owner-run business — not a large retailer — so we collect the minimum information needed to make and deliver your charcoal, and nothing more.

Who we are

Ouse Valley Charcoal, Harrold, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom. You can contact us about anything in this policy at hello@ousevalleycharcoal.co.uk.

For Val & Jamie

This is a first draft, written to match what the site currently does. Before it goes live, please confirm: the registered/trading name and address to use here if different from above; whether the business needs to register with the ICO and pay the data protection fee; which order-form backend you've chosen (Formspree, Netlify Forms, or custom) so section 5 can name it specifically; and whether any analytics or marketing tools will be added, since the cookie banner and section 3 below currently state that none are in use.

The information we collect

Information you give us directly

When you place an order for local delivery, we ask for:

  • Your name, phone number and email address
  • Your delivery address, village and postcode
  • Any access notes or delivery instructions you choose to add (for example, gate codes or where to leave your order)
  • The products and quantities you'd like to order

If you contact us by email, we'll hold the content of that message and your email address for as long as needed to answer you and keep a reasonable record afterwards.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, our hosting provider automatically logs basic technical information when you visit — such as your IP address, browser type and the pages you request — for security and to keep the site running reliably. We don't use this information to identify individual visitors, and we don't currently run any analytics, advertising or social media tracking on this site.

Cookies

This site currently sets only the cookies strictly necessary for it to function — for example, a small preference stored in your browser to remember that you've seen our cookie notice. No advertising or analytics cookies are set, and no data from this site is sold or passed to advertisers.

If that changes in future — for example, if we add visitor analytics to understand which pages are useful — we'll update this policy and the cookie banner so you can make an informed choice before anything non-essential is set. You can review your cookie notice at any time using the "Cookie Preferences" link in the footer of this site.

How we use your information

We use the information described above to:

  • Take, confirm and fulfil your order, including arranging and completing local delivery
  • Contact you about your order if there's a question or a change to timing
  • Respond to enquiries you send us
  • Keep the records that UK law requires us to keep for accounting and tax purposes
  • Keep this website secure and working properly

We do not use your information for marketing emails or newsletters unless you separately ask us to, and we never sell your personal information to third parties.

Our legal basis for processing

Under UK data protection law, we rely on the following grounds:

  • Contract — to take your order and arrange delivery, we need your name, contact details and address.
  • Legitimate interests — to respond to enquiries, keep our site secure, and maintain reasonable business records, in a way that doesn't override your rights.
  • Legal obligation — to keep financial records for the periods required by HMRC and other applicable law.

Who we share your information with

Local deliveries around Harrold, Odell and Carlton are currently carried out by us directly, so your delivery details are not passed to a third-party courier.

Our order form is processed by a third-party form service (provider to be confirmed — see note above), which receives the information you submit solely in order to deliver it to us by email. We don't use this provider for anything beyond that.

We may also share information where we're required to by law, for example with HMRC for tax purposes, or if needed to protect our legal rights.

How long we keep your information

We keep order and correspondence records for as long as is reasonably needed to fulfil your order and answer any follow-up questions, and afterwards for the period UK law requires us to retain financial records (typically up to six years). After that, information is securely deleted or anonymised.

Keeping your information secure

We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold, including limiting who can access it and using reputable, secure third-party services to send and store order enquiries. No method of transmission over the internet is entirely secure, but we work to protect your information appropriately for a business of our size.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

  • Ask us what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it
  • Ask us to correct information that's inaccurate or incomplete
  • Ask us to delete your information, where there's no good reason for us to keep it
  • Ask us to restrict or object to how we use your information
  • Ask for your information to be transferred to you or another organisation, where technically possible

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@ousevalleycharcoal.co.uk. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator.

Children's information

Our website and services are aimed at adults ordering charcoal for cooking and are not directed at children. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time — for example, if we start using a new order-form provider or add analytics to the site. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. We encourage you to check back occasionally.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your information, please get in touch:

Ouse Valley Charcoal
Harrold, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom
hello@ousevalleycharcoal.co.uk