I’m in the planning stages of an Arts Council project about exploring archaeological/heritage sites with photogrammetry. As part of it, I got to buy myself a lovely DJI Mini 4 Pro!
With it being a funded project, I obviously want to make sure I’m doing everything right, as I don’t want anything to come back and bite me further down the line, but when it comes to permissions, it’s making my head spin!
My county council (Derbyshire) and Historic England, both have blanket bans on drone use across their sites (DCC wording is “The use of drones isn’t permitted at our countryside sites.” which initially made me think it meant the whole of the countryside!).
The county archaeologist told me that HE and the county council don’t actually own many heritage sites, but they manage them. Most heritage sites, even scheduled monuments, are privately owned. So he said it’d be a case of getting owners permission.
Has anyone got ANY experience of this sort of thing? I have a sinking feeling that the project is doomed before it’s even begun!
There is similar wording / type of thing for the Peak and Lake District and Derbyshire council say they will not give you land owners details so its a bit of a tricky one but as per the drone code you always need land owners permission to take off and land from their land but you might be able to plan a lot of your flights where your taking off from public land ( layby next to a road sort of thing )
But thinking about it a bit more - due to the nature of the project I am sure it would not be overly hard to get permission from the land owners if you outline your intentions and you have 3rd party insurance to cover you for any little oops ( you would need commercial cover I would think as its a funded project and your flight would be part of that project )
Yeah, it’s tricky. I did think about just using public land for take offs/landings, but I don’t want to give anyone a reason to come out shaking their fists at me for flying over their land without permission.
I’m struggling a little with the finding out who owns the land and how to contact them. Land Registry has been useful to some extent, but sometimes the results aren’t much help when it’s a site in the middle of nowhere.
Ah, that’s a good shout about the commercial cover. I signed up for the Gold membership in here to get some insurance. I wonder if there’s a way to bump it up to include commercial cover. Something I probably have to do a bit of digging for, to see if I do need commercial cover. Cheers
They can shout all they want as they don’t own the sky so as long as there is no restrictions from the CAA your fine - be sure to use Drone Scene to check for any restrictions (NOTAM’s / FRZ’s )
know the rules and maybe keep a copy of them to hand - there are lots of guides you can download for that around - just make sure they are upto date and relevant for the drone your flying.
As for the insurance - Grey Arrow’s does not cover commercial so check out Coverdrone for commercial cover - I am sure you will need it as your doing paid work ( its a funded project so paid )
As for the missing, who owns the land - to there and just ask them - I was at a windmill recently and asked some of the members that were there. They made a call to the chairman and she said yup no issues at all just be safe. All they can say is No at the end of the day and you just say thanks and leave it at that.
Cheers. Will give Coverdrone a look. Also, I have insurance for my photography business, so might give them a call to see if they do a drone add-on or something.
I might have to be a bit more careful with landowners as I don’t want them moaning to English Heritage or the council about me, as I already do volunteering within the local heritage network, and hope to one day do some work in it, so don’t want to give myself a bad rep.
I’ll try doing some visits in advance to some of the sites I have short-listed to see if there’s anyone around to chat to, but as most of them are just on their own in a field, I don’t fancy my chances. Maybe I’ll just leave a note under a rock for them or something
Hi @MrSheen, it looks as though you’re quite new here
Why not nip over to the Introductions page, and say hello properly and tell us a bit about yourself.
If you do, don’t forget to ask them if it’s fully EC785/2004 compliant. CAA are really strict on the commercial operations aspect and the (ridiculous, in my opinion) level of aviation insurance they require you to have in order to fly a 250g bit of plastic at 400ft - but that’s a whole other rant
