Policies

On this page you can find the current policies for the Swale Means Business website including the terms and conditions of use and the privacy policy.

You can use the links below to easily navigate each section:

Swale Means Business Terms and Conditions

This page explains the terms and conditions which you agree to when using the Swale Means Business website.

These terms and conditions are for use of the Swale Means Business website which can be accessed through the World Wide Web via www.swalemeansbusiness.co.uk, PDA, digital television, mobile phone and RSS feed. In these terms and conditions, when we refer to ‘Swale Means Business’ we are referring to the website operated by Swale Borough Council (SBC), Swale House, East Street, Sittingbourne, Kent ME10 3HT. By continuing to use this website you agree to the following terms of use.

This page was last updated on 25 September 2024.

Disclaimer

We make every effort to ensure the information on this website is accurate and up-to-date. However, to the extent permitted in law, we do not accept any responsibility for any statement in the content of Swale Means Business. Swale Borough Council is not liable for any loss caused as a result of your doing, or not doing, anything as a result of viewing, reading or listening to this website.

Links to other sites

Certain links, including hypertext links, in our site will take you outside of our site. Links are provided for your convenience and inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement or approval by SBC of the linked site, its operator or its content. We are not responsible for the content of any website outside of our site. Please direct any comments or complaints to the site’s authors.

Copyright

All rights in the design, text, graphics and other materials on our site and the selection or arrangement thereof is copyright of SBC or other third parties. Permission is granted to electronically copy and print, in hard copy, portions of our site solely for private or educational use (within the classroom), provided that no changes are made to the material and that SBC is acknowledged as the owner.

Virus protection

Every effort has been made on the content of this website to protect the user from malicious content. You must however take your own precautions to ensure your computer is not exposed to viruses and malicious computer programmes. Swale Borough Council does not accept any responsibility for loss, disruption or damage to the system which you use to access this website.

Governing Law

These terms and conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with English laws and are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Visit Swale Advice Hub Terms and Conditions

The Swale Means Business website includes a resource library called the Visit Swale Advice Hub.

Use of content (referring to images, written content and videos)

Users may use content to promote tourism in Swale. The user is not entitled or authorised to sell, re-sell, use, broadcast, post or reproduce images for any non-tourism related purpose.
The user must satisfy themselves that all permissions, rights, and consents that may be required for the reproduction of the images (both in print and online) have been obtained from all appropriate parties.
All SBC rights (including copyright, trademarks and other intellectual property rights) in the resource library are reserved by SBC as owner or on behalf of licensors as licensee, as appropriate and nothing in this licence operates to transfer or licence these rights or any of them to the user.
Users must not claim nor imply that they have an exclusive relationship with SBC, Visit Swale or Swale Means Business, or that any of these organisations endorse their business or their products.

For the use of images, users must specifically:

Formally credit images as stipulated at the point of download;
Not alter, manipulate, add to or have any part deleted without consent from SBC;
Provide SBC with at least one complimentary copy of the leaflet or a link to where the image appears;
Not use or reproduce any images from the website for any negative tourism related purposes. Whether any such use is deemed to be negative is at the absolute discretion of SBC and if users are unsure about this issue please contact us at the end of this webpage. Furthermore, users shall not use or reproduce any image in any way that could bring SBC, Swale Means Business or Visit Swale into disrepute.

In the event that users breach and/or fail to comply with any of these terms or conditions we reserve the right to withdraw your right to use the Visit Swale Advice Hub. A user’s right to use any content they have downloaded will also be terminated with immediate effect.

Where users are in breach of these terms we also reserve the right to seek as liquidated damages a sum equal to three times the market value charged under normal stock photography rates (as calculated by SBC, acting reasonably). If users fail to make this payment within 5 working days of us invoicing them for such a fee, we reserve the right to institute proceedings for copyright infringement or as otherwise deemed appropriate, and to seek to recover from users all related legal fees and associated costs.

Warranties – The content in this resource library is provided on a free of charge, non-exclusive, ‘as-is’ basis by SBC. To the fullest extent permitted by law, SBC excludes all representations and warranties (whether express or implied by law) including warranties as to satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, security and accuracy. Furthermore, it excludes all liability to you for any loss or damage (direct or indirect) howsoever arising out of or in connection with your use of the Visit Swale Advice Hub.
Indemnity – Users agree to indemnify SBC in respect of all damages, costs, claims, demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims arising out of or as a result of a breach of these terms and conditions or otherwise in connection with your use of the Visit Swale Advice Hub.
Termination – SBC reserves the right to terminate this service without notice and without cause at any time and to its sole discretion.

The terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales and users submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales in the event of any claim or dispute in connection with your use of the Visit Swale Advice Hub and/or these terms and conditions.

Revisions to Terms and Conditions

Please check this web page on your next visit to the website as we will continue to revise the Swale Means Business website terms and conditions (including the Visit Swale Advice Hub). Continued use of the website is your acknowledgement that you agree to these terms and conditions howsoever they change.

Accessibility Statement for Swale Means Business

This accessibility statement applies to the Swale Means Business website.

This website is run by Swale Borough Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
listen to most of the website using a screen reader

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. There may be older pages where this is not the case, but we are working to simplify these.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

The ‘Ask Phil’ live chat cannot be accessed using the tab keyboard button. The service can also block the page if opened on a zoomed in page. If this is the case and you have an enquiry please call us on 01795 417398 or email economicdevelopment@swale.gov.uk
The map on the Why Swale page may be difficult to access. Please refer to the Why Swale section of the website which includes written content about Swale.
You cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader.
There is not a transcript for the videos in Visit Swale Advice Hub’s video library.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Email economicdevelopment@swale.gov.uk;
Call 01795 417398;
Submit a request through our contact form;
Message us through the Swale Means Business Facebook Page.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact: the Strategic Programme and Assets Team on economicdevelopment@swale.gov.uk or by calling 01795 417398.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Visiting us in person

We are based at Swale House, East Street, Sittingbourne, Kent ME10 3HT. Our reception is open between 10am and 12 noon, Monday to Friday.

If you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Swale Borough Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Disproportionate burden

Navigation and accessing information

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contracts are up for renewal, or in September 2025.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2025, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix [example of non-essential document].

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 9 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 25 September 2024.

This website was last tested on 25 September 2024. The test was carried out by Swale Borough Council.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test: testing six variations of each page which uses all of the functions on this website.

Swale Means Business Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 25 September 2025.

This policy explains how we use your information and how we protect your privacy.

This policy relates to the Swale Means Business website which is administered and owned by Swale Borough Council, Swale House, East Street, Sittingbourne, Kent ME10 3HT.

Why we collect your personal information

Through the Swale Means Business website we collect data about our users to:

Respond to any question or feedback which you submit to us through the website or by email.
Help us monitor and improve the website and services we offer.

All information provided will be held and processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and will be used only for those purposes detailed above. The Data Controller is Swale Borough Council.

As the data collector, we may collect personal information from visitors to this site. We will not provide any of your personal information obtained via the web to other companies or individuals unless required by law.

We also use a customer relationship management (CRM) tool called Evolutive to store personal information and help deliver our services to you. The service is run by Alcium Software. When we share your information, it is always protected by an agreement which we have in place with organisations to ensure that they comply with data protection law.

Whenever you provide sensitive information we will ensure all reasonable steps to protect it. We will also take security measures to protect your personal information when it is stored. Email addresses received as part of an enquiry are only used in relation to the enquiry, unless you have agreed to other correspondence such as marketing emails.

Third party sites

Our website may provide links to third party sites. We do not take responsibility for the content of these pages as we do not control these websites. To make sure your privacy is protected, we encourage you to review their privacy policies

The use of your data

By submitting your data, you consent to the use of that information as set out above. Where personal data is requested through forms, such data is only used for the purpose stated on the form and will not be given or sold to any third parties. This privacy policy only covers the Swale Borough Council web site of Swale Means Business. Websites linked to from this site are not covered by the policy. Swale Borough Council will at all times comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?

We currently provide two email newsletters which can be registered for through this website. These are:

The Economic Development E-Bulletin
The Visitor Economy Newsletter.

We will only send you an email newsletter if you’ve agreed to this.

At any time, you may remove your address from one or both of these mailing lists by emailing edu@swale.gov.uk with a request to unsubscribe from our database.

What are my rights?

You have the right at any time to request details of the personal information SBC has about you.
You have the right at any time to ask for your information held about you to be corrected if necessary.
You have the right to ask SBC to delete the personal information it holds about you.
You have the right to restrict processing of your information to this consultation only or to restrict its use in any other way you specify.
You have the right to ask for your personal data to be transferred to another organisation in an appropriate format.
You have the right to object to the personal data we hold about you being used for other purposes.
You have the right to withdraw at any time any consents and permissions you have given to SBC in connection with this consultation.
You have the right to complain if you think your personal information has not been handled correctly.

To exercise any of the above rights please contact SBC at the following email address: dpo@swale.gov.uk.

You have the above rights but some of the rights are not absolute and there may be a legal reason why we cannot comply with your request.

How do we use cookies and similar tracking?

The website that you are currently viewing (https://www.swalemeansbusiness.co.uk) is a microsite that is owned and managed by Swale Borough Council.

Introduction

Our website uses ‘cookies’, which are small data files which collect information about how you use the website. They are stored on your device and may be accessed by a website’s server. Cookies however cannot be used to identify any user personally.

How we use cookies

The following is a list of cookies used by our website and what they are used for:

Name	Description	Expires
_utma	A cookie used by Google Analytics to determine the number of unique visitors to the website.	2 years.
_utmb	A cookie used by Google Analytics to calculate the average length of time that you spend on the website.	30 minutes.
_utmc	A cookies used by Google Analytics to calculate and record when you close the browser.	When the browser is closed.
_utmz	A cookie used by Google Analytics to find out how you reached the website.	6 months.
ga_nextpage_params	Stores information which will be sent to Google Analytics on the next page you request.	When the browser is closed.

Youtube videos

Our website uses YouTube to embed videos on some pages. YouTube provides its own cookies when a video is viewed such as:

Name	Description	Expires
_use_hitbox	Provides a randomly generated number for your browser to help identify you.	When the browser is closed.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	Youtube uses this to count the number of ‘views’ of a video.	9 months.

Blocking cookies

The majority of browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari etc.) allow you to block cookies from being installed on your device.

Please note that any restriction or deletion of cookies could impact on the functionality of this website.

Further information on the blocking cookies for each browser can be accessed at:

If you use a mobile phone, you may need to check the relevant section of the manual to block cookies.

Deleting cookies

Most browsers will allow you to delete cookies installed on your device. Dependent on your browser, further information can be accessed at:

Mobile phone users will also need to consult their manual for details on how to delete cookies.

How can I contact the team which updates and administers Swale Means Business?

The Swale Means Business website is owned and operated by Swale Borough Council. If you have any questions about our use of cookies and how we store your data then contact the Strategic Programme and Assets Team on edu@swale.gov.uk, call 01795 417398 or write to Swale Borough Council, Swale House, East Street, Sittingbourne, Kent ME10 3HT.