Takeoff, landing & operating permissions, what is the letter of the law?

Drone Rules and Regulations
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Hello! Fairly experienced drone pilot with a UK law question.

What is the actual letter of the law with taking off and landing a UAV around the permissions needed?

All explanations I have found state you are breaking the law if you take off, land or operate a UAV from private or public land without the owner’s/governing bodies express consent (if taken completely literally). This seems absurdly limiting to me as even figuring out who to ask can be a multi day long task and then you can be completely blocked from your flight just by them not replying (which they reasonably won’t be if they being constantly asked by a dozen or more drone pilots); it doesn’t seem like a reasonable requirement for something you technically should do for every flight.

I have found when delving into a few of these kind of ‘rules’ before that they aren’t actually the law, only guidelines that will if followed mean you will be operating legally. Because this particular one is so insanely limiting I want to find out what it’s based on.

Any help appreciated.

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Blockquote
this particular one is so insanely limiting I want to find out what it’s based on.

Property/trespass law has been around for hundreds of years. Quite a long time before drones came along.

Broadly speaking, as a landowner, you have the right to control what happens on your land.

If someone turned up in your back garden, and started flying a drone, you might have something to say about it.

Whilst you’re right in saying it seems ‘absurdly limiting’, and pondering if these rules are ‘only guidelines’ that seems to assume that the CAA came up with these rules holistically a couple of years ago. They didn’t. Property and trespass laws have existed for a long time and the CAA has no jurisdiction to change them.

Perhaps more pertinent questions are “Do people follow the landowner permission requirement?”, “Is it a criminal offence not to get permission?”, “What can a landowner do if you don’t get permission before flying?”, “Can you be charged with an offence after the fact? E.g. could you be prosecuted for flying on particular land 10x over a period of 2 years?”, “If so, how many cases have gone to court in the last decade?”, “What were the penalties?”, etc?

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From where have you got this definition?

I am not qualified to give you legal advice, so please don’t take anything I say as such.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines trespass as to ‘enter someone’s land or property without permission’.

Trespass is not a criminal offence. It is a civil matter.

It can become criminal if you do not leave when asked to do so.

If you refuse to leave when asked to by a landowner, you can face a number of consequences, including:

  • Criminal prosecution: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSAC) makes trespass a criminal offence in some cases. The maximum penalty is four months in prison and a fine of up to £2,500.

When will an offence under the PCSAC be made out?

An offence will be committed under the PCSCA, if a person over the age of 18:

  • resides or intends to reside on land in or with a vehicle (including a caravan) without consent; and
  • fails to leave and/or remove their property (or re-enters the land) as soon as reasonably practicable when asked to do so; and
  • has caused, or is likely to cause ‘significant’:
  • damage to land/property/the environment;
  • disruption to the use of land/supply of utilities; and/or
  • distress via ‘offensive conduct’, such as the use of threatening words or behaviour

(From here: Trespassers can now be prosecuted | Hill Dickinson)

Therefore, one could argue that so long as you leave if and when the landowner, or their agent, asks you to do so - you can fly virtually anywhere you like.

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Thanks for this, it’s essentially how I thought it worked prior to reading a number of drone rules guidance pages making this claim of needing direct permission every time. It makes complete sense to me it would work on the same ‘rules & president’ set by trespass.

I would consider flying from or in someone’s ‘living space’ as being something that you should need to ask permission for, whilst flying from my local field it shouldn’t be needed unless the landowner has specifically asked I/people don’t… just the same as if I was walking around.

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