School and church drone surveys for Portsmouth City Council

New UAV rules committed to UK law in December 2020 made it more cost-effective and easier to conduct safe, authorised flights in tighter, more congested spots. Combined with another year of flawless flying in our logbook and a growing fleet of smaller agile drones, we were well-equipped for flying over roads and rooftops in Portsmouth's dense residential areas.

We flew at dawn at St Wilfrid's Church in Fratton, using a sub-250g drone to shoot high-quality top-down photos of the roof. Three more aerial inspections followed at Manor Infant School, Cumberland Infant School, and Copnor Infant School. No unsightly, time-consuming, risk-incurring scaffolding — just flawless GPS-driven aerial mapping wrapped up in a matter of hours.

The photos were processed and sent to the council's surveying and development teams to analyse and annotate in their maintenance plans. Most days, we can get a call in the morning, be on site a few hours later, and have the photos delivered before sundown. That's exactly what makes drone property surveys so powerful, and you wouldn't even know we were there!