Terms and Conditions

Introduction and Overview

Cocking Parish Council (“The Council”) maintains the website www.cocking.org (which includes www.cocking.org.uk), referred to hereafter as ‘cocking.org’ as a non-commercial, not for profit community service on behalf of the village and residents of Cocking, West Sussex.

The primary purposes of the site are:

To provide information about the village of Cocking to its inhabitants and any others who may be interested
To provide information about the work of Cocking Parish Council and other local government bodies
To promote the community of Cocking both within the village and to the outside world
To provide residents of Cocking with a medium for sharing their knowledge and promoting their views and ideas about the village and issues that affect it
To provide a medium for local individuals and organisations to promote themselves for purposes that are honest, legal, decent and inoffensive and generally beneficial to the village of Cocking or its residents

Important matters

All residents of the Parish of Cocking, including those under 16 with the permission of their parents, are cordially invited to become members of cocking.org
Non-residents may also wish to become members of cocking.org and subject to the resources available, The Council will normally accommodate such wishes
The Council’s decisions on matters of membership and all other matters will be final and in particular,
- The Council reserves the right at any time to exclude any material it regards as inappropriate or excessive in any way
- The Council also reserves the right at any time to deny access to any membership or service provided by the site to any individual or group who in its opinion has abused the privilege of membership in any way
Editorial matter may include the opinions of The Council, but also material contributed by guests, members and other subscribers.The Council is not responsible for the opinions of guests, members or contributors.

Access

Access to and use of cocking.org is provided by The Council subject to the following terms:

By using cocking.org you agree to be legally bound by these terms, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of cocking.org. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all the following terms please do not access and/or use cocking.org.
The Council may change these terms at any time by posting changes online. Please review these terms regularly to ensure you are aware of any changes. Your continued use of cocking.org after changes are posted means you agree to be legally bound by these terms as updated and/or amended.

Use of cocking.org

You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use cocking.org content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any cocking.org content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of cocking.org content requires the prior written permission of The Council.
You agree to use cocking.org only for lawful purposes, and in a way that does not infringe the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else’s use and enjoyment of cocking.org. Prohibited behaviour includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue within cocking.org.

Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

cocking.org content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to cocking.org, its products and services (or to third party products and services), is provided “AS IS” and on an “IS AVAILABLE” basis without any representations or any kind of warranty made (whether express or implied by law) to the extent permitted by law, including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.
Under no circumstances will The Council be liable for any of the following losses or damage (whether such losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise): (a) loss of data; (b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits; (c) loss of business; (d) loss of opportunity; (e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation; (f) losses suffered by third parties; or (g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of cocking.org regardless of the form of action.
The Council does not warrant that functions contained in cocking.org content will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that cocking.org or the server that makes it available are free of malware, viruses or bugs.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

The names, images and logos identifying Cocking Parish Council, cocking.org or third parties and their products and services are subject to copyright, design rights and trade marks of The Council and/or third parties.

All material on this Website – unless otherwise stated – is copyrighted, and no words, photographs, games, graphic or audio material may be used without The Council’s expressed permission.
The Council hereby authorise you to copy materials published by it on cocking.org solely for your own non-commercial personal and non-public use, subject to the conditions set out as follows. In consideration of this authorisation, you agree that any copy or copies of these materials which you make shall retain all copyright and other proprietary notices in the same form and manner as on the originals. Except as specified above, nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring by implication, estoppel or otherwise any licence or right under any patent, trademark or copyright of The Council or any other party.

For the avoidance of doubt,

ALL CONTENT ON THIS WEBSITE IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT. EXCEPT AS SPECIFICALLY PERMITTED HEREIN, NO PORTION OF THE INFORMATION ON THIS WEBSITE MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, OR BY ANY MEANS, WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM COCKING PARISH COUNCIL, AND ANY OTHER COPYRIGHT HOLDER. VISITORS TO THIS WEBSITE OR USERS OF MATERIAL PUBLISHED ON THIS WEBSITE ARE NOT PERMITTED TO MODIFY, DISTRIBUTE, PUBLISH, TRANSMIT OR CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS OF ANY MATERIAL FOUND ON THIS WEBSITE FOR ANY PUBLIC OR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES.

Contributions to cocking.org

Where you submit or are invited to submit any contribution to cocking.org (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) you agree, by submitting your contribution, to grant The Council a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licenceable right and licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, play, make available to the public, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to your contribution worldwide and/or to incorporate your contribution in other works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in your contribution, and in accordance with privacy restrictions set out in The Council’s Data Protection & Privacy Policy.

If you do not want to grant to The Council the rights set out above, please do not submit your contribution to cocking.org.

Further to the above section, by submitting your contribution to cocking.org, you;

warrant that you have the right to make it available to The Council for all the purposes specified above; and
- warrant that it is not defamatory; and
- does not infringe any law; and
- indemnify The Council against all legal fees, damages and other expenses that may be incurred by The Council as a result of your breach of the above warranty; and
- waive any moral rights in your contribution for the purposes of its submission to and publication on cocking.org and the purposes specified above.

Cocking.org Membership and Community Rules

You agree to use cocking.org communities (including forums and message boards) in accordance with the following Membership and Community Rules. These apply across all cocking.org community sites and services. You should, however, read the local house rules of the particular site or service you’re using, as there may be some local variations to these rules.

Membership is not restricted to residents of Cocking, but a connection with the village or its locality are generally required. The Council reserves the exclusive right to determine who can be and who cannot be a Member of this and related websites.

a. About your posts:

Contributions must be civil and tasteful
Not disruptive, offensive, abusive, mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble, but instead should be be constructive and polite
Content that is unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.
If you use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting the community or annoying other users you may have action taken against your accounts.
Be patient: users of all ages and abilities may be taking part in the relevant cocking.org Community.
No spamming or off-topic material: we don’t allow the submission of the same or very similar contributions many times. Please don’t re-submit your contribution to more than one discussion, or contribute off-topic material in subject-specific areas.
No advertising without The Council’s permission
Contributions containing languages other than English may be removed unless allowed in the relevant local house rules.
No impersonation
No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive etc) user names
You may not refer to specific URLs (web site addresses) unless allowed under the relevant local house rules. If you know of a worthy web site relevant to the discussion topic, please inform the host of the Community area.
Deliberate misuse of the complaints facility is not permitted. If you persist in doing this action may be taken against your account.

b. Safety:

We advise that you consider the implications very carefully before revealing any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example: telephone number, home address or email address), and please do not include postal addresses of any kind. If you have a helpful address to share, inform the Webmaster via the ‘Contact’ menu link, for promotion if it is seen as appropriate.
The above guidance is particularly important in relation to children. This site will not normally publish personal information about minors and if it does, it will only do so with the written permission of their parent/s or guardian/s.

c. About the law:

You may not submit any defamatory or illegal material of any nature in cocking.org. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio.
Contributing material with the intention of committing or promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited.
You agree only to submit materials which are your own original work. You must not violate, plagiarise, or infringe the rights of third parties including copyright, trade mark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights.
The views expressed by contributors to cocking.org are those of members of the public and are not necessarily those of The Council.

d. If you are under 16:

Please get a parent or guardian’s permission before taking part in any cocking.org discussion or before applying for any service.
Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example, telephone number, home address or email address).

e. If you breach these Terms of Use:

If you fail to abide by these rules (and/or any variations that may be posted on any page) when taking part in a cocking.org community service, you will be sent an e-mail which informs you why your contribution has been rejected or edited. This mail could also include a warning that continuing to break the rules may result in action being taken against your use of cocking.org.
This action may include any relevant account or accounts you have been given access to being placed into a state of temporary or permanent suspension.
If you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to cocking.org or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on cocking.org, and The Council considers such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, The Council may use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop any further such infringements. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school, email provider or the ‘Authorities’ about the infringement/s.
The Council reserves the right to delete any contribution, or take action against any account, at any time, for any reason.

Money Matters

This website is run as a non-profit making (not for profit) community venture.
There are however costs associated with running the website.
The Council reserves the right to use advertising and other methods of promotion or raising funds.
The publishing of material relating to local businesses does not necessarily mean that any fee has been paid.

Data Protection & Privacy

Please refer to our separate Privacy Notice.

General Terms and Conditions

If there is any conflict between these terms and specific terms appearing elsewhere on cocking.org then the latter shall prevail.
If any of these terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from these terms and the remaining terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.
These terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.
Last updated: 11 April 2023