Privacy Policy

Last updated: 28 October 2026

1. Who we are

The Hideout House Company Ltd (“Hideout House”, “we”, “us” or “our”) designs, supplies and installs outdoor classrooms, shelters, playground equipment and related products, primarily for schools and educational establishments.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, The Hideout House Company Ltd is the controller of the personal information described in this privacy policy.

You can contact us at:

The Hideout House Company Ltd
Corner House Studios
Main Street
Southwick
Peterborough
Northants
PE8 5BL

Telephone: 01832 275902
Email: info@hideouthouse.com
Website: https://www.hideouthouse.com/

This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect personal information when you visit our website, contact us, request a brochure or quotation, use our live-chat service, purchase a product or otherwise deal with us.

2. The information we collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect:

Your name and job title.
The name and address of your school, organisation or business.
Your telephone number and email address.
Your postal and installation address.
Details of your enquiry, project requirements, quotation or order.
Information you provide when downloading a brochure or completing a website form.
Messages and contact details supplied through our live-chat service.
Correspondence between you and Hideout House, including emails and notes of telephone conversations.
Order, payment, invoice, delivery and installation information.
Feedback, testimonials, survey responses and information relating to complaints.
Your marketing preferences and any request not to receive further communications.
Technical information concerning your use of our website, such as your IP address, browser, device type, approximate location, pages visited and cookie identifiers.
Photographs, videos or other project material provided by a school or customer where this is relevant to an installation, case study or testimonial.

We do not intentionally collect special-category personal information through our website, such as information about health, ethnicity, religious beliefs or political opinions. Please do not provide this type of information unless it is necessary and we have asked you to do so.

3. How we collect information

We may collect personal information:

Directly from you when you telephone, email or write to us.
When you complete a contact, brochure-download or quotation form.
When you use the Pure Chat live-chat facility on our website.
When you ask us to conduct a site visit or prepare a quotation.
When your school, employer or another representative contacts us on your behalf.
During the ordering, delivery, installation and after-sales process.
Through cookies and similar technologies, subject to your cookie choices.
From publicly available business sources, including school and organisational websites, where permitted by law.
At exhibitions, conferences or other business events.
From suppliers, contractors or professional advisers involved in a project.

If you provide personal information about another person, you should ensure that you are permitted to do so and that they understand how their information may be used.

4. How and why we use personal information

We only use personal information where we have a lawful reason to do so.

Enquiries, brochures and quotations

We use your information to:

Respond to an enquiry.
Send a brochure or other information you have requested.
Discuss your requirements.
Arrange a site visit.
Prepare and follow up a quotation.

Our lawful basis is taking steps at your request before entering into a contract and our legitimate interests in answering enquiries, providing information about our products and developing our business.

Orders, delivery and installation

We use your information to:

Process and administer an order.
Manufacture, supply, deliver and install products.
Communicate with you about project arrangements.
Provide warranties, maintenance and after-sales support.
Deal with questions, complaints or disputes.

Where you are personally a party to the agreement, our lawful basis is the performance of a contract. Where the agreement is with a school, company or other organisation, our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in performing the agreement and communicating with the people responsible for it.

Accounts and legal obligations

We use relevant information for invoicing, payment administration, accounting, tax, fraud prevention, insurance and legal compliance.

Our lawful bases are compliance with our legal obligations and our legitimate interests in administering the business, protecting our legal rights and recovering sums owed to us.

Website operation and security

We may process technical information to:

Operate and secure our website.
Diagnose technical problems.
Prevent misuse, fraud and malicious activity.
Understand the general performance of the website.
Remember your privacy and cookie choices.

Our lawful bases are our legitimate interests in maintaining a secure and effective website, compliance with legal obligations and, where required for non-essential cookies or analytics, your consent.

Analytics and cookies

Subject to your cookie choices, we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors find and use our website. This may include information about pages viewed, time spent on the website, approximate location, browser, device and interactions with the site.

Our lawful basis for placing or accessing non-essential analytics cookies is your consent. You can accept, reject or change your choices through the Cookiebot consent tool.

Please see the Cookie Usage section of our website for more information about the individual cookies in use.

Live chat

We use Pure Chat to provide the live-chat facility on our website. Information entered into the chat box, together with associated technical information, may be processed by Pure Chat on our behalf.

We use this information to respond to questions and provide requested assistance. Our lawful bases are taking steps at your request before entering into a contract and our legitimate interest in providing customer service.

Please do not enter confidential, financial or special-category personal information into the live-chat box.

Marketing

We may use business contact information to send relevant information about our products, services, case studies and company news where:

You have consented to receive it;
The law permits us to contact your organisation without prior consent; or
The “soft opt-in” applies following a sale or negotiation for similar products or services.

Where the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations permit us to send business-to-business marketing without consent, we normally rely on our legitimate interests under UK data protection law.

We do not rely on legitimate interests indiscriminately. We consider whether the communication is relevant, whether it is reasonably expected and whether its effect on the recipient’s privacy is proportionate.

Every marketing email will identify Hideout House and provide a way to opt out.

You have an absolute right to object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing. You may opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe facility in an email or by contacting info@hideouthouse.com. We will then stop sending marketing communications and may retain a minimal suppression record so that we can honour your request.

5. Our legitimate interests

Where we rely on legitimate interests, those interests include:

Responding to business and customer enquiries.
Providing quotations and requested product information.
Managing relationships with schools, customers, suppliers and professional contacts.
Performing agreements made with schools and other organisations.
Providing customer service and after-sales support.
Promoting relevant products and services to appropriate business contacts.
Improving our products, services and website.
Maintaining website and information security.
Preventing fraud and misuse.
Managing complaints and protecting our legal rights.
Recovering money owed to us.

Before relying on legitimate interests, we consider whether the processing is necessary and balance our interests against the rights, reasonable expectations and possible effect on the individual. We apply additional care where information relates to children.

6. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies.

Some cookies are strictly necessary for the website to operate and do not require consent. Other cookies, including analytics cookies, will only be used where you have given the appropriate consent.

We use Cookiebot to:

Display our cookie banner.
Provide information about the cookies in use.
Record and manage cookie consent.
Allow visitors to accept or reject different categories of cookies.

You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by reopening the cookie-preferences tool on our website.

Rejecting non-essential cookies will not prevent you from accessing the main content of the website, although some optional features may operate differently.

For further details, including the current list of cookies and their duration, please see our Cookie Usage information and Cookiebot cookie declaration.

7. Who we share information with

Where necessary and lawful, we may share personal information with:

Employees and authorised representatives of Hideout House.
Suppliers, manufacturers, delivery providers, installers and contractors involved in your project.
Website-hosting, maintenance and IT-support providers.
Email, document-storage, customer-management and accounting service providers.
Cookiebot/Usercentrics, which provides our cookie-consent system.
Google, which provides Google Analytics.
Pure Chat, which provides our website live-chat facility.
Banks, payment providers, accountants, auditors and insurers.
Legal and other professional advisers.
Debt-recovery providers where an account remains unpaid.
Government departments, regulators, courts, law-enforcement bodies or other authorities where required by law.
A purchaser or adviser in connection with a sale, merger or restructuring of our business.

We do not sell personal information.

We require service providers acting on our behalf to protect personal information and use it only for the agreed service.

8. International transfers

Some of our technology and service providers may store or access information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we take steps to ensure that an appropriate level of protection is in place. Depending on the country and provider, this may include:

Transfer to a country covered by UK adequacy regulations;
The UK International Data Transfer Agreement;
The UK Addendum to the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses;
The UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, where applicable; or
Another safeguard permitted by UK data protection law.

You may contact us if you would like further information about the safeguards relevant to your information.

9. How long we keep information

We retain personal information only for as long as it is reasonably required for the purpose for which it was collected, and to meet applicable legal, accounting, insurance and reporting obligations.

Our normal retention approach is:

General enquiries and unsuccessful quotations: normally retained for up to 10 years
Customer, order, installation, warranty and contract records: retained for the duration of the relationship and normally for up to six years afterwards. Certain information may be retained for longer where a warranty, dispute or legal requirement applies.
Financial and accounting records: normally retained for six years from the end of the relevant company financial year, or longer where required by law.
Marketing records: retained while the contact remains relevant and has not opted out, subject to periodic review. A minimal suppression record may be retained after an opt-out to ensure that the person is not contacted again.
Live-chat records: retained for up to 24 months
Google Analytics information: retained for 14 months
Cookie-consent records: retained for the period configured in Cookiebot and for as long as reasonably necessary to demonstrate the consent choices recorded.
Complaints and legal disputes: retained while the matter is being considered and for an appropriate period afterwards, taking account of relevant legal limitation periods.

Information may be securely deleted or anonymised when it is no longer required.

10. Security

We use appropriate organisational and technical measures intended to protect personal information against accidental or unlawful loss, alteration, disclosure, access or destruction.

These measures include limiting access to people who require the information for their work, using appropriate security controls and requiring relevant service providers to protect information processed on our behalf.

No internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If we become aware of a personal-data breach, we will investigate it and notify affected individuals and the Information Commissioner’s Office where the law requires us to do so.

11. Children’s information

Our website and products are directed primarily at schools, educational establishments and the adults responsible for purchasing or managing their facilities. The website is not intended to collect personal information directly from children.

Because our work takes place in schools, project photographs, videos or case studies may occasionally include pupils. Where a school or customer provides such material, we ask them to ensure that the appropriate permissions and safeguarding considerations have been addressed before it is supplied or approved for publication.

We will take particular care with any personal information relating to children and will not knowingly use it for direct marketing.

12. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis being used, you may have the right to:

Be informed about how your personal information is used.
Ask for access to the personal information we hold about you.
Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
Ask us to erase your information in certain circumstances.
Ask us to restrict the way we use your information in certain circumstances.
Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
Object at any time to the use of your information for direct marketing.
Receive certain information in a portable, machine-readable format.
Withdraw your consent where processing is based on consent.
Not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing where it has a legal or similarly significant effect.

These rights are not absolute and do not all apply in every situation. For example, we may need to retain information to comply with a legal obligation or establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

We do not currently make decisions about people using solely automated processing that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

To exercise a right, contact us at info@hideouthouse.com or write to us at the address at the beginning of this policy.

We may need to ask for information to confirm your identity. We will normally respond within one month. We do not normally charge a fee, although the law permits a reasonable fee or refusal in limited circumstances, such as where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

13. Withdrawing consent and objecting to marketing

Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal will not affect processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.

You can:

Use the unsubscribe option in a marketing email;
Email info@hideouthouse.com to opt out of marketing;
Change your cookie choices through the Cookiebot preferences tool; or
Contact us using the details at the beginning of this policy.

We will act on direct-marketing objections as soon as reasonably possible.

14. Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to websites operated by other organisations, including social-media, video or supplier websites.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those independent websites. You should read their privacy information before submitting personal information to them.

15. Complaints

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so that we can investigate and try to resolve the matter.

Email: info@hideouthouse.com
Telephone: 01832 275902
Post: The Hideout House Company Ltd, Corner House Studios, Main Street, Southwick, Peterborough, Northants PE8 5BL

Please state that your concern is a data-protection complaint and provide sufficient information for us to investigate it.

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

Website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

ICO Head Office
4th Floor, No. 3 Circle Square
5 Hawkshaw Street
Manchester
M1 7BL

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy when our services, suppliers or legal obligations change. The latest version will be published on this page and identified by the “last updated” date shown above.

We recommend checking this page periodically for changes.