Privacy
policy.

01 — Who we are

Who's responsible

Branchwalkers Tree Surgery is the trading name of Branchwalkers Group Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 11327035. Registered office: c/o Mad About Tax Limited, Station Approach, Seaford, East Sussex BN25 2AR.

We're the controller of the personal information described here: we decide how it's used and we're responsible for looking after it. To ask us anything about it, email info@branchwalkerstrees.co.uk or call 0800 567 7433.

02 — What we collect

The information we hold

When you ask for a quote

Through our online form, by phone, by email or on WhatsApp:

• your name and phone number, plus your email address and postcode if you give them;
• how you'd like us to get in touch;
• details of the job — the service, type of property, number of trees, urgency, site access, whether a tree is protected, and anything you write in the description;
• photos of your trees or property, if you send them to us.

When you apply for a job

• your name and email address, plus your phone number and postcode if you give them;
• the role you're interested in, your experience, your cover letter and your CV;
• whether you have the right to work in the UK.

We don't ask for health details, ethnicity, religion or other sensitive information, so please leave it out of your CV and cover letter unless it's relevant to the role.

When you send either form

• your IP address and browser details, stored with your enquiry or application;
• the page you sent it from.

When you browse the site

We count page views — which page, and when — to see which pages are useful. The count isn't linked to you: we use no cookies or identifiers, and no IP address is stored with it. Our hosting and image-delivery providers handle standard technical data, such as your IP address, to serve pages and keep the site secure.

03 — Why we use it

Purposes and legal basis

Data protection law requires a lawful basis for every use of personal information. Ours are:

• Replying to your enquiry, visiting your site, quoting and doing the work — you've asked us to, so it's necessary to take steps towards, and then carry out, a contract with you.
• Tree Preservation Order, Conservation Area and felling-licence applications — part of the work you've asked us to do. We send your name, the site address and details of the work to the local council or the Forestry Commission. Councils usually publish these applications, including the site address and applicant's name, on their public planning register.
• Considering your job application — steps you've asked us to take before a possible employment contract, and our legitimate interest in recruiting the right people. If we offer you a job, the law requires us to check your right to work in the UK.
• Keeping business and tax records — required by law.
• Protecting the website from spam and abuse — our legitimate interest in keeping our systems secure. This is why IP addresses and browser details are stored with form submissions.

You don't have to give us any information, but we need your name and a phone number to answer a quote request, and your name and email address to consider a job application. We don't make decisions about you by purely automated means.

04 — Who sees it

Who we share it with

We never sell personal information. We share it only with:

• the people at Branchwalkers who need it to handle your enquiry, your job or your application;
• the companies that run our website for us, acting only on our instructions: Vercel (hosting), Turso (database), UploadThing (storage for your photos and CVs, and our website images), and our website developer, who maintains the site;
• Google, which provides our email, if you email us or we email you;
• WhatsApp (Meta), if you choose to message us there — WhatsApp's own privacy policy covers messages sent through it;
• the local council or the Forestry Commission, when we make an application on your behalf;
• our accountants, insurers and legal advisers, where they need it to do their job;
• the police, courts or regulators, when the law requires it.

05 — Where it's kept

Storage and transfers

Our database, the storage for photos and CVs, and the servers that handle form submissions are all in Dublin, Ireland. UK law recognises Ireland and the rest of the European Economic Area as protecting personal information to an adequate standard.

Vercel, Turso and UploadThing are US companies, and Google's email service may process data in the US and elsewhere. Where a provider can reach personal information from outside the UK, the transfer is covered by UK adequacy regulations — including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified — or by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum in the provider's data processing terms.

06 — How long

How long we keep it

• Quote enquiries that don't go ahead: up to two years after we last hear from you, in case you come back to us.
• Customers: job records, invoices and related correspondence for six years after the end of the financial year the work was done in, because tax law requires it.
• Job applications, including CVs: six months after we tell you our decision. If you join us, your application becomes part of your staff record.
• Photos and CVs: deleted from storage at the same time as the enquiry or application they came with.
• IP address and browser details: deleted along with the enquiry or application they came with.
• Spam protection: a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address, used to block floods of automated requests and deleted within a day.

07 — Your rights

What you can ask us

You have the right to:

• get a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• have it corrected if it's wrong;
• have it deleted;
• ask us to restrict how we use it;
• object to us using it where we rely on legitimate interests;
• receive information you gave us in a reusable electronic format.

Some of these rights have limits — for example, we have to keep tax records for six years even if you ask us to delete them. To make a request, email info@branchwalkerstrees.co.uk or call 0800 567 7433. It's free, and we'll reply within one month. We may need to confirm who you are first.

08 — Cookies

Cookies and tracking

This website doesn't place cookies or similar tracking technologies on visitors' devices — no analytics cookies, no advertising, and no third-party tracking scripts. The only cookie on the site is a login cookie for our staff admin area, which visitors never receive.

Links to other websites, such as WhatsApp and Checkatrade, are covered by those sites' own privacy and cookie policies.

09 — Reviews

Customer reviews

The reviews on this site were left by our customers — most on Checkatrade, a few sent to us directly. We show them with no more than a first name and the town or postcode area, never a full name or address. If a review is yours and you'd like it removed from our site, just ask.

10 — Security

Keeping it safe

Everything sent to and from this website is encrypted (HTTPS). Enquiries and applications are only shown in a password-protected admin area, to the people who need them. Photos and CVs are stored at long, unguessable web addresses that we never publish.

11 — Complaints

If you're not happy

Please tell us first and we'll try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.

12 — Changes

Updates to this policy

If the way we use personal information changes, we'll update this page. The date at the top shows when it last changed.