Ah! I missed that bit, I thought it was for the airport restriction, teach me to read things properly 
That makes more sense, I’m surprised they’d allow any drone overflight over BAE systems site.
£24 fee to request flying in Blackpool FRZ (includes Glasgow Prestwick, Liverpool, Walney & Wharton)
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Yes I was reading as the whole Walney airport FRZ.
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On the topic of FRZs, I see on Dronescene that virtually the whole of the Western Highlands east of Loch Ness, north up the North coast and south to Mallaig, is inside an FRZ. I gather from this that even one were in the mountains walking, one would have to contact Swanwick for permission to fly inside an area of several thousand square miles. Or have I got this wrong?
EGR610
Click on any of the locations in the restricion area for more details
@AlbionDrones has flown there lots
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It’s not an FRZ, it’s the Highlands Restricted Area used for low flying military exercises and only active under NOTAM.
Check for any NOTAMs before flying, but if it’s not active then have at it 
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Yup, check the NOTAM and flying schedule, and if in doubt contact the RAF Low Fly Team, they are really good to work with - in October they actually allowed me to give them my itinerary and added it to their anti-conflict database, so I was free to fly at the times and locations I gave them…
I love flying the Highlands, can’t wait until I can move there permanently…
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Thank you for the clarification guys. I find the terminology at times drowns out the message.
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Have you heard anything back from Blackpool? Suspect it’s Blackpool council (who runs the airport ) that’s trying to raise some coppers. Or are they trying to discourage drone flights? I certainly can’t afford £20-30+/ application .
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One brief call so far, there’s been too many weekends and bank holidays occurring over the last fortnight to get much done 
Will update once I have something to share, Phil 
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It appears to be only Blackpool airport charging this fee. If you put in a new application for the other airports on the portal, it doesn’t mention a fee.
Think they’ve shot themselves in the foot with this fee. No one is going to pay £20 + VAT for permission, they’ll just ‘take a chance’ and fly without permission.
Even before this fee was introduced, I’ve come across drone flyers who never asked for permission.
Report them to the CAA and don’t let the airport fob you off that’s it’s an admin fee.
Why report them to the CAA?
Not sure they’d be able to do anything.
Are they not charging a fee to fly in their airspace which is against CAA (CAP722c) 3.2 Airspace Access Charging.
The establishment of an airspace restriction means that the sponsor is responsible for managing it, and not that the sponsor ‘owns’ it; airspace is a State asset. There should be no reason for a Sponsor to charge for access to airspace for UAS. Whilst some burden of work may exist in processing applications for UAS access to airspace, it is envisaged that this will not require an undue burden…
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Hi, first of all, I hope everyone is well. This is such bad news, I hardly ever fly around here anymore as it is. When I 1st read this the other day (27th Dec) , I submitted 2 requests, for the whole of 2026 in 2 separate areas which were approved, then I thought I’d do the same 2 areas for 2027 which got rejected with the message this morning saying… “we have had a message from air portal to say the new maximum application period is 7 days. We have had to refuse this application and you will need to resubmit your application for each flight you wish to take”. Now my original 2 for 2026 have now been cancelled as well. Like others have said the airport have always been great to deal with, people will just start flying illegally now which is no good for anyone.
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This is so typical of Blackpool. Always in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Such a retrograde move, so many just flout all the rules already, this can only be bad for aircraft safety. When they were operating holiday flights they had a £10 per passenger per flight “Airport Development Tax” which was just another money making scam introduced by greedy owners.
I reckon it’s the council, they’re as bent as a nine bob note.
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Not got a problem with the Council
It’s them that own the airport, and the ATC, have always been good in the past.
So in the past they were good even though the Council still owned them? Yeah that makes sense. Not being funny but can we keep politics out of it.
Read higher up in the thread, Blackpool ATC have always been accommodating, the airport is owned by Blackpool Council who are, like many other councils, desperately short of money and looking to raise funds wherever they can. Not political, a fact of life.