CAA definition of 'Crowds and built up areas'

[kvetner]

See previous discussion about this dataset (and its limitations) here, which also includes a link to a more interactive map for the same data:

Flying away from congested areas

Everyone knows the law, you can’t fly a camera-equipped drone over or within 150m of any congested area, unless you have permission from the CAA. The Drone Code refers to the same thing as a “built-up area”. The CAA has previously suggested that in deciding what is “congested” or “built-up”, pilots should “use their common sense and make a safe judgement”. I was wondering whether there might actually be some publicly accessible mapping of built-up areas available, not to eliminate common-sense…

But yes, it’s clearly not a definition of “congested area” and common sense remains the best guide. Note that the congested area requirement only applies to camera-drones, so this utterly daft bit of the regulation can’t genuinely claim to be about safety risk.