I asked my local council regarding flights in their parks and beach area. The reply from Newry, Mourne and Down Council was they were happy for me to fly provided I was following the drone code and CAA rules and also a registered user. Such a breath of fresh air. Unlike another council in the province.
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Won’t they struggle with that though? I was under the impression that air space restrictions had to be approved by SofS?
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Restricted Fly Zone, not a No Fly Zone.
The area in question is extremely popular in Summer with thousands there at the weekends so I can understand why they’re concerned.
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If you mean any PSPO introduced then it will only apply to their land, not the airspace above it. If you mean a RFZ then maybe not if they can produce evidence to justify it. Knowing the area well I would hazard a guess that if one was granted it would be on the grounds of any potential nuisance or harm to the local wildlife as the whole area forms part of the Saltmarsh Coast which is teeming with migratory birds and other forms of coastal wildlife.
I still maintain that regardless of their reasoning behind getting in touch with me its far better to work with these people than against them.
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Some of you just seem to be itching for a row. I’ve no issue with what they’ve done here. They just want to know that the people using their land are compliant with the law. You can bang on about drone code “I have a right to do this” all you like, but the reality is they’re mostly just enforcing that code by checking you’re registered. It seems a thoroughly sensible way to open dialogue to me. Again, so intent on whether you can nobody thinks whether they should
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Cynical me thinks too much thought is preoccupied with monetisation.
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Not itching for a row but I thought innocent until proven guilty, not the stance the council took. I don’t particularly care whether a council has a PSPO, bylaw or tries to shoo me off with a feather duster while I’m flying, I check the rules before I fly and if they say I can’t, I’ll find somewhere else. Their loss.
100% not looking for a row, I am just aware of how local authorities work/think.
No issues if they are checking compliance but I am far too cynical to believe that is all it is.
It’s fair to say I would react the same way @OldSoulBoy has and I agree with his stance but the situation has prompted a discussion about the wider issue and that is the context in which some of us are expressing concern about the future.
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@ResilienceUAV believe me I’m as cynical as the rest of us but I’m always up for being proved wrong and the only way to find out is to work with them, hopefully get on this working party if it comes off, and have my say on things. After my hour long chat with the lady I sincerely believe she’s genuine and she did also warn me that other departments that she works with (Nature & Wildlife) have real issues with UAV pilots, even to the point of making it extremely difficult for the Tourism & Marketing Dept to commission commercial drone pilots to carry out promotional videography over the same stretch of coastline I was using which is why I made the remarks I did in an earlier post.
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Whatever they say or do, it’s not gonna stop folks is it ?
As for having issues with UAV’s perhaps that’s the first question to ask her to evidence
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Sadly, that is my expereince from 2018
ACTION: I politely enquired to my councils parks Department about flying from thier parks.
CONSEQUNCE: Council’s parks website was updated: NO DRONES period.
And unless they’ve put PSPO’s or bylaws in place totally unenforceable.Just because the SAY you can’t doesn’t mean you can’t.
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Thanks for this clarificaiton.
Today I registered a request with the council to provide access to all current bylaws.
After that; I will enquire about PSPO’s (as, until yesterady, I not aware of such devices).
Public Space Protection Orders really are a means of last resort for a council. They’re geared far more to persistent anti social or nuisance public behaviour and are not that easy to get passed. Strict criteria have to be met before they even think about it because they really are draconian in their nature because they implicitly impinge of a persons basic rights. There is far more likely to be a bylaw in place than a PSPO and I really do get the feeling that a lot of these councils have been caught napping when it comes to the proliferation in UAV ownership and flying and are now playing catch up without knowing exactly how to deal with it.
I know for a fact that Maldon District Council have no bylaws in place concerning UAV’s and Promenade Park or the foreshore there. The only one they have is dated 1961 (updated in 1999) and concerns the speed and piloting of pleasure boats and other craft up and down the river but I still think its better to work with them even though they have no legal power to stop me flying there (yet)
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From what I understand about PSPO’s the Councils cannot just impose one without having received a number of complaints regarding the use of ‘whatever’ on the land in question. So, if they try to impose one, you have the right to ask to see the complaints that have been lodged.
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This is true, but you can only challenge a PSPO within a set period after it is introduced. If you don’t take them to court within the first six weeks, there’s then nothing you can do about the PSPO until its expiry / renewal date. So in reality, since hardly anyone is going to go to court, all you can do is moan at your local councillor.
I was told by Maldon Council that the use of PSPO’s is always as an absolute last resort once all other control avenues have been exhausted because of the difficulty in justifying one in the first instance, the severe nature of the restrictions they are designed to impose and the hoops they have to jump through to get it enacted. Getting one imposed simply due to drone activity I would have thought extremely unlikely.
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