Privacy policy

The following privacy policy explains how we use information about your and how we protect your privacy.

Who we are?

A network of 13 Community Forests in England who provide free advice and support to landowners and land managers to plan, fund and plant new woodland.

A full list of all organisations involved in the network can be found on our website.

The types of personal information we collect

The Service will use some or all of the personal information below when you are using this website:

  • Information about you, will be collected when you make an enquiry with England’s Community Forests through our online enquiry form. This will include your name, contact details and a postcode for the land you are referring to in your enquiry.
  • The IP address that you accessed any of our online services from.

Why do we need your personal information?

We only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a requirement in order to:

  • deliver the service, or handle your query
  • to plan and improve the services we offer
  • for research, however this would be in anonymised form unless we ask for your consent to use your personal information for this purpose
  • to evidence positive outcomes to central government funding agencies

Who we share your information with?

 

When we collect your information via our online consent form it will be sent to the relevant Community Forest for your area. If you do not fall within a Community Forest area the information will be sent to secretariat@communityforest.org.uk which is processed by The Mersey Forest.

When we have to share your information, we will only do so where it is necessary or required by law.

The organisations we will share your information with are:

  • Government Agencies (e.g. Department of environment, food and rural affairs)
  • Relevant local authorities
  • Relevant potential providers of funding for tree planting
  • Potential contractors and/or volunteer organisations who can help deliver any tree planting projects.

The Data Controller

Cheshire West and Chester Council, who manage the Mersey Forest partnership and Trees for Climate Programme, is the Data Controller for this processing.

The Data Protection Officer at Cheshire West and Chester Council makes sure we follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, you can contact them by the below channels.

  • Post: Data Protection Officer, The Portal, Wellington Road, Ellesmere Port, CH65 0BA

The lawful basis for the processing

Most of the personal information we collect is provided to us by you, under Article 6 of the UK GDPR we rely on the following:

  • You gave us your consent (UK GDPR Article 6 (a) for us to process your data for the specific purpose of responding to the enquiry you have made through England’s Community Forest website. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting secretariat@communityforest.org.uk

How do we protect your information?

We ensure that the records we hold about you are held in a secure way , and we only make them available to those who have a right to see them.

Your information will be securely stored by the individual Community Forest it has been sent to (the Community Forest this relates to depends on where your land is located).

No information is stored centrally on the website.

How long we keep your information for

We will only use your personal information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your information will be kept for 10 years then archived.

If we need to use your information for research or reports, your information will be anonymised and any information taken from notes (hand written or typed) during any consultation sessions will be securely destroyed.  The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely

Will my data be transferred abroad?

No

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have a number of rights that you can read about on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office using the following details: