Burbo Bank - Added to Coastal Scenery in North West

I have just added this to the map of places to fly your drone at Drone Scene:

Land owner permission not required.

Ample free parking, Crown Estate so permitted to fly…

It does get busier during hot sunny periods but you can always push out towards the tide to fly.

The originator declared that this location was not inside a Flight Restriction Zone at the time of being flown on 03/09/2020. It remains the responsibility of any pilot to check for any changes before flying at the same location.

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Thank you @TonyDM for adding to the DroneScene map

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I flew here and uploaded a video to Youtube for someone to then contact me and advise me that it is classed as an area of high scientific value and permission is required from both Sefton council and Natural England. I do not think flying is actually allowed unfortunately. Ridiculous.

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Thanks for the heads up. I have just done some digging on the sefton council website and you are right.

I fly up and down the sefton coast and have never had an issue, also never seen any signage advising of bylaws.

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It’s such a shame as we do not go out with any intention of disturbing wildlife, people or property but are as usual considered a problem until we can prove otherwise. Worst thing is we will never be given the opportunity to show that we are responsible. If we have an operators/flyers licence we should be given benefit of doubt.

If you actually look into it we are basically not allowed to fly anywhere in this country we live in.

Nature England, local authorities and national trust have it locked down.

WTF?

It’s within the Sefton Coast SSSI. I’m not convinced by what you have been told. It’s an offence to recklessly damage, destroy or disturb any of the designated features of a SSSI (which at Sefton includes various birds), but it’s not automatically an offence to fly over or within it. There are specific prohibitions at Sefton on “recreational activities likely to damage or disturb species of interest”, but these are prohibitions on operations carried out or permitted by the owner or occupier of the land.

All assuming there is no specific anti-drone byelaw in place, then so long as you don’t disturb the wildlife, then at most the landowner (Sefton Council?) could ask you to move on.

You could:

  1. Fly anyway, plead ignorance, see what happens. This is what airlines are doing every time they fly over this site. Nobody is stopping them.
  2. Notify whoever contacted you that you will be making another flight and request confirmation of precisely what regulation they plan to prosecute you under, or to demand permission under. It’s just bullshit if the best they can come up with is “it’s not allowed”.
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My intention, I will respectfully move on if given information on the bylaws.

I know the place like the back of my hand and would alway look for a quiet area to take of and land and respect the privicy of anyone on the beach.

Plus I adore wildlife far more than human civilisation and would never jeopardise the safety or comfort of any element of the natural world.

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Did you spill the remainder of your half empty glass this morning @DarthMavic :thinking:

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I have been in contact with natural England and they have stated that although it is classed as an area of scientific importance they do not deem casual drone flying to be of high impact to the area and as such do not require permission. Sefton is another matter but as they do not have any signage quoting bylaws I’m am happy to continue flying responsibly in the area.

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It’s more a case of I don’t want the nazis turning up and taking my expensive equipment off me lmao :joy: Just trying to keep us away from that scenario.

It was a hater on YouTube who bombarded my channel with statements like “highly illegal” and such. I had to get more clarity and make sure the community was aware.

@DarthMavic - really pleased you got a positive response from Natural England - something to wave in front of the stormtroopers if they ever turn up.

To be fair, there are two issues here, which come up repeatedly:

  1. There are a host of laws that can affect us over and above the Drone Code, none of us can be expected to know what they all are, and generally it’s best to follow the advice of Admiral Grace Hopper:

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

  1. Not only don’t we know the law, but councils, busybodies and all their fellow killjoys don’t know the law either, and will be very happy to tell you that you can’t do something whether they have any legal basis to it or not. My advice is that they need to justify what they’re saying, rather than us justifying what we are doing. If they can’t cite specific regulations and details, it’s very often because there aren’t any.
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Exactly :+1:. Natural England advise that land owner permission may be required still but the land owner is the Queen so that’s that.

Brilliant!

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I have just gotten off the phone with Lizzy she said not to worry… She loves to fly her drone on crown estate so we should too.

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:laughing:

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Woke up and it was empty but now it’s 5/8 full!

:rofl:

Good man :slight_smile:

I’ve flown here too @TonyDM :grin:

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