I had a look on Derby City Councils FOI request and see they said they have no drone policy etc in place. Yet on Derby Parks website ( Derby City Council own these parks) it says that the flying of drones is not allowed. Very strange ???
@JockyB Ignore 'em John, I do!
Colin, I do ignore the Derby parks ruling. Often flying on a Saturday morning to take a pic of the folks sat outside a cafe on my local park ( open only on Saturday mornings 10:30- 2pm) so I can post it almost straight away to the local group, urging them to support the volunteer friends of the park ( they run the cafe) No one has yet told me not to fly.
Iām thinking of organising a meet up there, but will ask Derby Parks for permission to do so beforehand ( they can only say yes or no ) I will explain to them that Derby City Council do not have any ādrone policyā in place banning the use of drones on council run land too.
Well done that seems a lot of work for you
Iām not sure if Iām getting this right for Sefton council so was hoping someone could help clarify. Iām still getting used to all of this!
Iām looking at flying my drone in Southport. The email communications which are logged seem to indicate that there arenāt any bylaws around flying drones, however, the Sefton council drone policy seems to indicate that they are pretty anti-drone.
Would I be correct that I can fly if Iām launching from private property (like a car park) but I should avoid launching from places like parks, sidewalks, or the beach?
Ideally Iād love to launch from the walkways near the beach, but it seems like I canāt.
@jbrun85 Sefton was discussed in more detail a couple of weeks ago.
See here:
Ah thanks!
Iāve just picked up on the feature to see the responses from the local councilsā FOI requests re their drone byelaws and drone policy approach. What a fantastic resource to have on tap! Whilst Buckinghamshire council have gone on record as answering NO to both questions posed, that does however seem to fly against what I have previously found online over the past two years. Itās got me wondering whether the previously seen āyou canāt do this and you canāt do thatā postings purporting to not allowing the use of drones in their parks for instance are actually lawful. So having just Googled āflying a drone in Higginson Park, Marlowā I immediately get shown a BCC page stating āyou may not use remote-controlled vehicles (including drones)ā amongst other anti-social activities such as metal-detecting and BBQāing and busking ā¦
Glad you found it useful Steve @R3SKT
I donāt know if theyāre breaking the law or not by putting up signs like that, but those signs will not stand up in court for a prosecution case against you when you have the local authority telling us (publicly, on record) that they have no byelaw and no policy.
Please let us know if you take any action to get the signs removed
Higginson Park (Marlow) | Buckinghamshire Council Hereās the link to what I found ā¦
How are those things anti-social anyways? BBQ goes hand in hand with being social.
Edit: ahh nevermind, I see those are your words not from the website guidance.
Drones, unfortunately, can be used in anti-social ways, and those disposable BBQs that leave rectangular burns in the grass and are simply abandoned after use must be a nightmare for park authorities. That said, I find the shouting and bad language involved with football matches pretty anti-social as wellā¦
AIUI, a local authority is within itās rights to prohibit flying from parks &c, but flying from is not the same as flying over. Unless it is within a Restricted Zone (airport, prison, military, royal residence) or subject to NOTAM, TOAL (Take Off And Land) from outside the park perimeter and fly wherever you want within line of sight and the Drone Code. Buzzing innocent picnickers or frightening the horses is anti-social, though.
Not a restriction
Never said it was, though I accept that that could be inferred from the way I wrote it and perhaps
I should have made the distinction.
Its confusing for newbies.
Again its not a given that these are all restricted
The below attachments are what I received from Buckinghamshire Council having used the exact same form of words on my FOI request. I intentionally wanted to ask them the same question to see if I received the same answer. Clearly the response depends on who gets to dig into the archives ā¦ definitely a different take on their earlier answer Not too sure what I am going to do with the results, but it just leaves you sitting in a little puddle of uncertainty when this happens.
AVDC-SERVER01_Fish_2165_001.pdf (633.2 KB)
AVDC-SERVER01_Fish_2166_001.pdf (425.2 KB)
Response (some not held).pdf (120.7 KB)
The first one is dated 1970 and the second one 2001
Crack on and enjoy your drone and you know whatā¦ dont be a dickā¦and you will be ok
As Sparky says, go fly.
If someone āofficialā rocks up, ask them where the legislation/byelaw is, and if it is posted in the area to let people know. As far as weāre concerned we have checked Dronescene and there is no FRZ, and unless there is clear signage pointing to relevant byelaws then itās fair game
Cheers guys, thatās exactly what I will do ā¦ when that 1970 bylaw was passed, drones werenāt even on the table
Hi all,
Firstly, I appreciate and respect all the effort that has been made on this subject.
Iām looking into the rules and regs specfic to Buckinghamshire parks as R3skt has already done.
On one hand we have the response posted on dronescene here which says the local authority has no listed byelaws concerning drone flight which would indicate we are allowed to fly.
We then have a separate response from the same office posted by R3skt which comes with PDFās detailing the specfic byelaws which indicate flights are prohibited from Buckinghamshire park sites.
So the score for and against is 1/1 for and against so far.
We then have the Buckinghamshire council website FAQ which clearly states drones flights are prohibited. I know FAQs and how they relate to actual law is debatable but for discussions sake lets say 1/2.
Again from the Buckinghamshire council website, we have detailed byelaws which mirror the PDFās posted by R3skt which indicated prohibitions. These should be regarded as up-to-date in my opinion as they are clearly typed out on a current website and not old scans of documents. So this get us to 1/3, for and against.
Now, realistically given the dronescene posted council response we, as a drone flying community and myself personally could argue we spoke to the council and were informed we can fly with no problems assuming we adhere to all the relevant CAA rules and regs and as someone here said ādont be a dickā. This might even give us a defendable case in court if the situation blows up and the horror stories of arrests and confiscations start. However realistical they may be.
On the other hand, we have data from only one source saying we are good and data from three sources saying we are decidedly not good. One of these is from the same office as the solitary good and the other two sources on current, published, public access council website.
My opinion, which I hope to evolve here is that the first council response was made by a random office bod who didnāt look into the matter sufficiently to give authorisation. I base this on clearly published information which contradicts that response.
An individual, myself in this case might get away with flying under these circumstances but if we as a community start flying around whilst quoting contradictory data there is the real possibly another bod in a much higher office might try to crack down even harder in a far more oppressive manner than we currently face. Especially given current events both in the UK and worldwide.
To paraphrase Malcolm Reynolds. āCome a day there wonāt be room for naughty people like us to slip aroundā
Personally, I want to fly wherever is safe and consequence free to do so.
Donāt get me started on things like VLOS and modern UAV systems but I admit Iām on the fence regarding this subject. I donāt mind ādiscussionsā with on site officialdom but thinking bigger picture from the point of view of the many and not just me.
I am only talking about Buckinghamshire council and myself here. Iāve not looked into other areaās where I might like to fly.
How should I or we in the broader sense as an eager enthusiast act here?
Opinions?
Nik