Beautiful Day for flying, first time over serious water…
Incredible place, easily accessible from Public Car Park.
Quite a lot of birdlife to keep an eye on at one end!
this works !
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Like it great quality, drove past a few times and often wondered if this was a drone free area but obviously not, I live in Cannock so may take a ride over one of the days, I found out that drones are permitted at chase water provided a few rules are adhered to so looking good for a change…
I parked in a public car park off Newton Hurst Lane, there are very well signed (and enclosed) pathways through the woods to the water, there’s a farm airfield to the east but apart from that it’s all good.
Take a landing pad as the grass is pretty long!
Cool pano! 
Gets you the Birds Eye Viewer Badge, too! 
Great work @Klokman. Love the place
Awesome shot there, looks like a great place for flying
Been there, and a local farmer told us we should’nt really be flying off their land (Stafford Water) but then got a message via you Tube asking if they could use the footage. Once he had seen the screenshots he asked us to video his holiday homes. After that he was happy to let us fly from his land if needed.
From the bridge to the fish farm is 6150 feet, my longest flight with the Mavic Pro.
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Hi all after going up chasewater today to fly my drone i was very quickly approached by the rangers who have informed me that i cannot fly over chasewater as its a certain kind of nature reserve … Now the post from higher up in the thread which was the railway also does not apply as they have told me they have also had to stop People flying over there to.
Now if i go off the NATS DRONE app i cant see any restrictions or see that its a nature reserve… im very very confused what are people’s thoughts @Sunseeker
I don’t know the area at all, but a search of the Chasewater website reveals not a single mention of drones. Ditto for the entire Staffordshire Council website. There is a mention on the Chasewater Railway site that basically boils down to flying within the Drone Code. An over-zealous ranger, perhaps… or an actual restriction the council hasn’t got around to communicating yet?
It is a SSIS because of the wildlife, which would make me more cautious about where I was flying… but I’m not aware that the status comes with any automatic legal restrictions on drone flights. Would be odd for them to stop you flying a small drone over the water to save upsetting the wildlife whilst they also advertise for people to come and try waterskiing. 
@JoeC i fully get that and fully agree with you and after spending 40 minutes on hold to Litchfield council for the phone to just cut off i thought forget it and went somewhere else … If the wildlife are not scared of the train, cyclists, runners, rc cars ,battery bikes, segways the list goes on and on why are we the enemy and slammed every chance someone gets a chance even though we are the ones appreciating the view and wildlife the the most … Its realy gets to me:triumph:
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I’m a pretty chilled out guy, but mate, when that happens…
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You can check nature protection designations via the DEFRA Magic Map. Go down the left hand menu, Designations → Land-based Designations → Statutory and you’ll see that Chasewater is not a Local Nature Reserve or a National Nature Reserve. It is, however, part of the Chasewater and The Southern Staffordshire Coalfield Heaths SSSI.
If you click the (i) symbol at the top of the website and then click the SSSI area, it gives you a link to Natural England’s website for further details of the SSSI designation. From there, you will find an item labelled “Operations requiring Natural England’s consent”: this sets out the actual legal restrictions, which are different for every site. At Chasewater, the only one relevant to drones is #10, “disturbing … wild animals … in their places of shelter”. You’ll probably be amused to note that #26 and #27 require permission from NE for sailing or water-skiing. Presumably they’ve granted a blanket permission for watersports use, which would make it farcical to argue that a drone can’t fly.
If you read the actual SSSI citation (link available from the NE Designated Sites page), you’ll see that most of the reason for being a SSSI is the vegetation, although the final paragraph talks about the birds that visit.
Legally, you could argue that flying a drone is not likely to affect the SSSI features of interest, or disturb nesting birds (depending on the time of year), any more than the other activities on the site. That may not convince the park rangers, and in the extreme they could enlist the assistance of the landowner (Staffordshire County Council?) to treat you as a trespasser.
It may be worth being aware that Natural England have been consulting on introducing bye-laws for SSSIs, which could make things much more restrictive if that happens in future.
Some options (in order of increasing appetite for confrontation):
- Fly when no park rangers are around.
- Write or email them asking them to set out, in writing, the legal restrictions that they wish to rely on if they ask you to stop flying again. Inform them you can see nothing in the SSSI designation that would prohibit this activity and that you intend to fly within the Drone Code / Air Navigation Order, and that you will keep a reasonable distance away from areas with birds on the ground.
- Turn up and fly, and have a similar argument with them there and then.
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I love this reply @kvetner
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You really have put time into research and im so glad this group has people like yourself . Thank you for the time and effort put into posts like this
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just came across this
I don’t think there’s any legal basis to that I.e. it’s just another public body trying to imply they have more control than they really do. I may drop them an email.
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@kvetner we are in such a grey area and that literally popped up in googles things to read and I was like ohh dam where do we actually stand
Puts a spin on everywhere
Hi everyone, just joined and I’m looking for any up to Date info on flying over blithbury resevoir.
I noticed you had similar discussions prior to COVID