Drone Policy

Operation of Drones

Now that drones are more accessible and widely used, we must make sure that the operations are managed appropriately and that the following guidelines are met, to ensure that our residents, tenants, and the general public’s safety is paramount, as well as our infrastructure and operations not being impacted.

You can find detailed summaries of the rules and regulations via the Civil Aviation Authority and Greater Manchester Police below, we would expect you to always adhere to these whilst operating on our land.

Unmanned Aircraft System Operations in UK Airspace – Policy and Guidance CAP 722

Drones | Greater Manchester Police (gmp.police.uk)

Any operator found to be piloting a drone over the Media City estate will be approached by the security team, asking them to cease operations and seek the relevant permissions as outlined in this policy.

Commercial Filming and Events

We do occasionally grant permission for drone-related commercial filming under certain circumstances. It is expected that any production company will comply with the same competency and insurance rules as those required from our contractors, suppliers, and event organisers. This includes but is not limited to Risk Assessments and Method Statements, Public Liability Insurance cover (£10mil minimum requirement).

We will consider applications from production companies who are using drone footage as part of a wider production which will also include filming on the ground with actors and presenters. They will be reviewed and signed off by our Marketing team, any licence fee will be in line with our rate card and at the discretion of the team. The footage should only be used for the named project and further use including image libraries is prohibited, this will be specifically outlined in any license/agreement between both parties.

General Public

We do not grant permission for private flying for the following reasons:

CAA regulations state that drones should not be flown above or near to people and should remain a minimum distance from buildings, and always within the operator’s line of site. The nature/layout of our properties, with people living and/or working on site, visitors present for a variety of reasons, means that any unauthorised flight would contravene CAA regulations for flights and therefore an operator would be acting illegally.

Non-commercial users are less likely to have the correct training or permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to operate drones.

If a drone causes damage or harm, pilots generally do not have the correct insurances, or level of insurances, to adequately compensate those affected.

Our estate has several major tenants, who have the right to privacy in their operations which can easily be disturbed by the presence of drones.

Similarly, with a few high-profile tenants on our estate, we are at a higher risk of being targeted by hostile reconnaissance. Limiting and controlling flights, allows us to provide our security team the information ahead of time.

Many drones have cameras attached and these could potentially infringe data protection laws (filming people without permission).

Commercial Contractors

We will review the merit of any proposed flight by commercial contractors, if it is deemed that there is a benefit in doing so, we would authorise it. However, in such cases we will recommend suppliers/operators who are experienced, meet the required levels of competency and insurance and have been carefully vetted.