This Privacy Notice explains the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us.
It also explains how we store and handle that data and keep it safe.

SF Planning Limited is an independent Town Planning Consultancy providing professional town planning advice to the business community, private individuals and public organisations. We can be contacted at SF Planning Ltd, 12 Royal Crescent, Cheltenham GL50 3DA or on 01242 231575.

If you have any concerns or queries about our data protection procedures, please contact Ralica Koleva-Naydenova on 01242 231575 or at ralica@sfplanning.co.uk.

We support our clients with residential, commercial, industrial, and health care developments, and listed building issues.

This means that we need to process data to supply you with the service(s) and information you have requested, and when managing your account. We will also process your payment data when we are processing invoices.

If you are one of the suppliers we work with to provide our services, then we process your data and finance details as part of our ongoing working relationship.

The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which a company may collect and process your personal data. Some of these reasons, set out below, are the bases we have for processing your personal data:

Consent

In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent. For example, when you opt-in to receive our newsletter or when you contact us with an enquiry via phone, email or on our website.

When collecting your personal data, we always make it clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.

Contractual obligations

In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.

We need to collect and retain your contact details, so we can, for example:

• Supply you with our information and/or services as a planning consultancy or;
• Enter into a contract with you to supply us with your services, such as with our IT services provider.

Legal obligations

If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.  

For example, we are obliged to retain certain information for HMRC tax and accounting purposes or to comply with other legislative provisions.

Legitimate interest

In particular circumstances, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.

For example, we retain customer and supplier information for six years beyond the contract period, in order to maintain a good working relationship with these individuals.

Via our website

When you use the form to contact us online with an enquiry, we collect your name, addresses and phone number in order for us to respond to you. We also have a link on our website for you to Tweet us directly, and if you do so, we’ll collect information about your Twitter profile so that we can reply.

Phone or email

If you make an enquiry over the phone or email, we will use the details you give us to assist with your query or registration with us as a client, as applicable.

We also collect data when we enter into a contract with suppliers.

• Contact information including: name, addresses and phone number
• If you are one of our clients or suppliers, then we also collect your contact and payment details as part of our ongoing working contract and to process invoices and payments.

Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we put on your computer if you agree. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of the website which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

For example, the cookies we use are ‘analytical’ cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they’re using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily and by helping you enter our site without having to re-login.

• We process data to enable us to fulfill our contractual obligations for both our clients and our suppliers.
• Client and supplier bank details will only be used when processing payment.
• We hold your email address so that we can send you our newsletter, if you’ve opted into our mailing list.

Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

At the end of that retention period, your data will be deleted completely. Some examples of our data retention periods:

Clients

We will keep the personal data you give us for 6 years so that we can retain a good working relationship with you should you have any queries or wish to work with us again on another project.

If you opt in to our mailing list, then we keep your email address securely on our system until you unsubscribe.

Suppliers

For companies supplying us with services, we retain your personal information for a period of 6 years so that we can, if necessary, contact you again and continue our business relationship with you.

We also need to comply with our legal contractual obligations and therefore we need to retain certain transactional information from your account for 7 years to satisfy accounting rules.

We are aware of the need to maintain the correct and highest-level security when processing your personal information. We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way.

We take the following steps to maintain the security of your personal information:

• We keep all your information in systems that are secure, using Microsoft Office, Focus IT and Sage One.
• Access to client information is limited to those who need access for the performance of their job.
• We maintain firewalls and anti-virus software
• Our systems are password protected
• Any data which is accessed off site or on a mobile device is kept locked when not in use and never left unattended

All documentation retained in paper form is kept locked in our offices and premises are protected by an intruder alarm.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties which act only on our instruction (known as “data processors”). 

Data processors might be, for example, a third-party supplier, or the local council.

Where we share information with these companies, public organisations or individuals, we make sure that they also keep your data secure and that they also protect your rights. To this end, we make sure that:

• We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
• They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them or where their terms and conditions of processing contain the correct data processor clauses under GDPR
• If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.

We sometimes also share your data with third parties for their own purposes (“joint controllers”) e.g. HMRC, accountants, legal advisors or public organisations.

We will only do this in very specific circumstances, for example:

• With your consent
• Where we have a data sharing agreement in place with the other party
• Where we are obliged to share the information for legal reasons

We do not transfer data outside of the EEA.

From time to time we may pass personal data such as your name and email address to other services that we use to send out communications (both electronic and print).

However, your personal data will remain in the EU or countries considered by the EU to have equivalent policies such as Jersey, Guernsey, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada. Companies based in the USA that have certified with the EU-US Privacy Shield programme are also considered to be permitted destinations by the EU (this includes popular US products like Gmail, DropBox and MailChimp).

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please contact Ralica Koleva-Naydenova on 01242 231575 or at ralica@sfplanning.co.uk.

Your right to withdraw consent

Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent. You can do this by contacting ralica@sfplanning.co.uk.

Where we rely on our legitimate interest

In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. 

We will then stop processing your information unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing.

Checking your identity

To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. 

For us to check your identity, please:

• Let us have enough information to identify you (e.g. your full name, address and customer/supplier number or order number, if applicable);
• Let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
• Let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act on your behalf.

If we choose not to action your request, we will explain to you the reasons for our refusal.

Your right to contact the ICO

We would hope that you will always raise any issues with us first, and that we will be able to resolve them to your satisfaction. However, if this isn’t possible then you always have a right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data.

You can contact them by calling 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns (this opens in a new window; please note we can’t be responsible for the content of external websites).

If you are based outside the UK, you have the right to lodge your complaint with the relevant data protection regulator in your country of residence.

You also have the right to take to seek a judicial remedy.

Updates to this privacy notice

From time to time we will make changes to this Privacy Notice, for example, as the result of government regulation, new technologies, or other developments in data protection laws or privacy generally. You should check our website periodically to view the most up-to-date Privacy Notice. This privacy notice was last updated on 3 September 2018.