Privacy Policy

The Outdoor Design Co. (“we”, “us”) is a UK garden design and build business. We decide how and why your personal information is used when you use this website, which makes us the “controller” under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

To contact us about your information, email enquiries@theoutdoordesignco.co.uk.

When you send an enquiry through our form, we collect:

• your name, email address and phone number;
• your postcode;
• the garden photos you upload (between 1 and 8), along with the original name of each file;
• the type of project you’re interested in, your description of what you’d love your garden to become, your style preferences and your approximate budget; and
• the date and time you sent the enquiry.

Photos of your garden may incidentally show your home, nearby properties or vehicles. Please try not to include photos of identifiable people, and please don’t put sensitive information (such as health details) or payment details in the form. We don’t need them.

Technical information. Like any website, the service that hosts ours processes technical data when you visit, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. This is used to deliver the site, keep it secure and fix problems. We don’t use it to identify you or build a profile of you.

Emails. Our email provider records basic delivery details for the emails the website sends, such as whether a message was delivered.

We only use your information for the purposes below, and we must have a lawful basis for each one.

• To respond to your enquiry, discuss your project and prepare design ideas for your space. Our lawful basis is taking steps at your request before entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) UK GDPR).
• To send you an automatic email confirming we’ve received your enquiry. The same basis applies, so you know your enquiry reached us.
• To keep a record of enquiries and conversations, and to follow up on them. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in running our business and handling enquiries properly (Article 6(1)(f)). We’ve considered your rights and expectations and believe this use is proportionate.
• To keep the website and our systems secure and to prevent misuse such as spam. Again, this is our legitimate interests.
• To meet legal, tax and accounting obligations if you become a customer. Our lawful basis is legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)), alongside the contract itself (Article 6(1)(b)).

We use your photos only to understand your space and to create design ideas for you.

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t use your enquiry details to add you to a marketing mailing list. If that ever changes, we’ll ask you first and explain.

We use trusted service providers (“processors”) to run the website and handle enquiries. They only process your information on our instructions:

• Supabase stores your enquiry details and your uploaded photos. Our database and photo storage are hosted in the UK (London). Photos are kept in a private storage area: they aren’t publicly accessible and can’t be browsed or listed from the website.
• Vercel hosts the website and processes technical data, such as IP addresses, when you visit.
• Resend sends the emails the website generates: the notification to us and the confirmation to you. It processes your name, email address and the content of those emails. We use its EU region.
• Our email providers deliver and store the messages we receive and send, including the forwarding of mail sent to our enquiries address to our inbox.

When an enquiry arrives, we receive a notification email containing your details and private links to your photos. Those links stop working after 7 days. The photos themselves stay in private storage until we delete them (see “How long we keep it”).

If you go ahead with a project, we may share the relevant details with people who help us deliver it, such as subcontractors or suppliers, but only what they need. We may also disclose information where the law requires it or to protect our legal rights.

Some of our providers are based in, or may process data in, countries outside the UK, including the United States. For example, Vercel and Resend are US companies, and Vercel serves websites from a global network.

Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK’s adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge for certified US companies) or the International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can contact us for more information.

• Enquiries that don’t lead to a project: we keep your details and photos for up to 12 months after our last contact with you, in case you come back to us, and then delete them.
• If you become a customer: we keep project records, including relevant photos, while we deliver the project and deal with any issues or warranty claims, and for up to 6 years after it ends so we can meet legal, tax and accounting requirements. After that, we delete them.
• Emails: messages we’ve sent or received may be kept in our inbox for the same periods.
• Provider logs: hosting and email delivery logs are kept by those providers for short periods under their own retention schedules.

You can ask us to delete your enquiry earlier at any time (see “Your rights”). We will do so unless we need to keep something to meet a legal requirement.

We take appropriate technical and organisational steps to protect your information. The website uses encrypted connections (HTTPS). Enquiry details and photos are held in access-controlled systems, the photo storage area is private, and access to enquiries is limited to the people who need it to respond to you.

No online service can be guaranteed completely secure, so please take care over what you choose to send.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• be told how your information is used (this policy);
• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your information in certain circumstances;
• ask us to restrict how we use your information in certain circumstances;
• ask for the information you gave us in a portable, commonly used format, where this applies;
• object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests; and
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on it. We don’t generally rely on consent for the uses described above.

We don’t make decisions about you using solely automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

To use any of these rights, email enquiries@theoutdoordesignco.co.uk. We may need to check your identity first. We aim to respond within one month, and there is normally no charge.

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please contact us first so we can try to put things right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint (opens in a new tab) or on 0303 123 1113.

This website doesn’t set cookies, and it doesn’t use analytics, advertising or similar tracking tools. The service that hosts the site may process technical data needed to deliver and secure it, as described above.

If we add cookies or analytics in future, we’ll update this policy and ask for your consent where the law requires it.

Our website and services are aimed at adults who own or look after a property. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you think a child has sent us information, please contact us and we’ll delete it.

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if we change how the website works. The “last updated” date at the top shows when it last changed.

For any question about this policy or your personal information, email enquiries@theoutdoordesignco.co.uk. Putting “Privacy” in the subject line helps us find your message quickly.