Privacy Policy
Last updated: 16 October 2026
This policy explains what personal information The Somerset District Miners’ Welfare Trust collects through this website, what we do with it, who else handles it and the choices you have. It also explains the cookies the website uses.
Who we are
The Somerset District Miners’ Welfare Trust is a registered charity in England and Wales, charity number 254736. We decide how the personal information described here is used, which makes us its controller under UK data protection law.
You can contact us about this policy or your information through our contact form, or by writing to the address on our entry on the Charity Commission’s register.
The website is built and looked after for us by CreateTheWeb, a web design company.
What we collect and why
When you use the Contact form
Your name, your email address and your message. We use them to read your message and reply to you.
When you use the Contribute form
Your name, your email address, what you tell us about the content (where and when it is from, what it is and whether it is protected by copyright), your description of it and any files you upload, such as photographs or documents. We use them to consider your contribution for the website and to contact you about it.
Spam protection on the forms
The Contact and Contribute forms use Google reCAPTCHA to check that a form is being sent by a person and not a spam program. It starts only once you begin filling in a form. It sends Google information about your device and how you use the page, including your IP address, which Google uses as its own privacy policy describes.
Visits to the website
If you allow analytics cookies, Google Analytics records which pages you visit, how you arrived at the website, roughly where you are (your town or region) and the type of device and browser you use. It does not tell us who you are, and Google Analytics does not store IP addresses. If you do not allow it, Google Analytics does not run.
As with any website, the server records each request it receives, including the IP address, the page asked for and the time, to keep the website running and secure.
Videos
Some articles include a YouTube video. Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press Play. Once you do, the video plays from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced service (youtube-nocookie.com), and YouTube can store information on your device and collect information about your viewing under Google’s privacy policy.
Our lawful basis
- Replying to messages and considering contributions: our legitimate interest in running the Trust and recording the history of the Somerset coalfield, and yours in hearing back from us.
- Spam protection: our legitimate interest in keeping the forms working and free of spam.
- Google Analytics and the radio player’s memory: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time from Cookie settings at the foot of every page.
- Server records: our legitimate interest in keeping the website secure.
Who else handles your information
We do not sell your information or share it for marketing. These organisations handle it for us:
- CreateTheWeb builds and looks after the website. Contributions sent through the Contribute form are emailed to CreateTheWeb, and messages from both forms are sent through CreateTheWeb’s email server.
- 20i, a UK hosting company, hosts the website and its database, where messages and contributions sent through the forms are stored.
- Google provides reCAPTCHA, Google Analytics (only if you allow it), YouTube (only when you play a video) and the Gmail account that receives messages from the Contact form.
Information sent outside the UK
Google may process information in the United States. Google LLC is certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which the UK recognises as giving adequate protection to personal information.
How long we keep it
- Messages and contributions sent through the forms are kept in the website for 12 months and then deleted automatically. Emails about them are kept for as long as we need them to deal with what you sent us.
- Anything we publish from a contribution stays on the website as part of its history archive. Contact us if you would like it changed or removed.
- Google Analytics keeps information for the period set in our account, which is no more than 14 months.
- Cookies are kept for the times listed below.
Your rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to withdraw any consent you have given. To use any of these rights, contact us through our contact form. We will reply within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Cookies
Cookies are small files a website stores on your device. Some websites also keep information in your browser’s storage, which the law treats in the same way. This website uses essential cookies, which it needs to work, and two optional groups that only switch on if you allow them. On your first visit a banner asks whether you allow them, and rejecting them is as easy as accepting them.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser’s settings. If you block essential cookies, the forms may not work.
Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when what the website collects changes, and the date at the top will show when it last changed.