Privacy policy

Woods Architects Ltd ("we", "us", "our") is the data controller responsible for your personal data. Our registered office is 24 Wilton Park Road, Shanklin, Isle of Wight, PO37 7HZ. You can contact us by email at hello@woodsarchitects.co.uk or by phone on 01983 211 968.

We are registered with the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). This policy sets out how we collect, use and protect personal data relating to clients, website visitors and professional contacts in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

We collect and process the following categories of personal data:

• Contact details: name, email address, phone number, postal address
• Project details: site address, brief, budget, photographs and information you share about your project
• Correspondence: emails, letters, meeting notes and records of our communications with you
• Financial information: invoicing details, bank details for professional payments (processed by our accountants, not stored on this website)
• Website analytics: anonymised data about pages visited, referral source, browser and approximate location (via Google Analytics)

We collect personal data in the following ways:

• Directly from you: when you submit our contact form, send us an email, call us, or meet with us
• From your authorised representatives: agents, consultants or family members acting on your behalf
• From publicly available sources: Land Registry, Companies House, local authority planning portals
• From third parties: other consultants on your project (structural engineers, planning consultants), your contractor, your solicitor
• Automatically via cookies and analytics when you use this website (see our Cookie Policy)

• Cookie Policy

We process your personal data for the following purposes:

We will never sell your data to third parties. We do not use your data for marketing unless you have explicitly opted in.

• To respond to your enquiry: when you fill in the contact form or email us
• To deliver our architectural services: managing your project from brief through to handover
• To comply with legal and professional obligations, including ARB and RIBA record-keeping, anti-money-laundering checks, and health and safety regulations
• To send project updates: essential communications about your project
• To improve our website and services: via anonymised analytics

We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

• Contract: processing necessary to deliver our services to you
• Legitimate interest: responding to enquiries, running our practice, marketing our services to professional contacts
• Legal obligation: tax records, regulatory compliance, anti-money-laundering
• Consent: for optional marketing emails, cookies that are not strictly necessary

We only share personal data where necessary to deliver our services or comply with the law. Recipients may include:

• Other consultants on your project (structural engineer, planning consultant, quantity surveyor, etc.): only with your knowledge
• The planning authority, building control and statutory consultees: as required for planning and building regulations applications
• Our contractors where you have appointed them: drawings, specifications and coordination
• Our accountants and insurers, where required for professional record-keeping
• Our email and cloud service providers (Google Workspace, Microsoft): our internal IT infrastructure
• Law enforcement and regulators, where legally required

We keep project records for a minimum of 15 years after project completion. This is a standard period required by our professional indemnity insurance and aligns with the Limitation Act 1980 for building contract claims. Some records (tax, statutory) are kept for 7 years by law.

After these periods, records are securely deleted or anonymised.

Under UK GDPR you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@woodsarchitects.co.uk. We will respond within one month.

• Right of access: request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Right to rectification: ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Right to erasure: request deletion in specific circumstances
• Right to restrict processing: limit how we use your data
• Right to data portability: receive your data in a portable format
• Right to object: object to processing based on legitimate interest
• Right to withdraw consent, where processing relies on consent

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please contact us first so we can address the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO):

Information Commissioner's Office · Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF · ico.org.uk · 0303 123 1113

• ico.org.uk