UK coverage · Wales
Drone surveys across Wales
Coal tips, slate landscapes, quarries, coast and renewables, surveyed from the air with careful planning around the military low-flying system and Wales's protected landscapes.
01Surveying in Wales
Disused tips and the South Wales Valleys
Wales has around 2,500 disused coal tips, many above homes, roads and watercourses in the South Wales Valleys. The Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Act 2025 created a new Disused Tips Authority for Wales to assess, register, monitor and manage them. Monitoring on that scale needs repeatable, accurate ground models, and LiDAR captured to a consistent specification lets owners and authorities compare surveys over time and pick out movement, erosion and drainage problems early.
In the north-west, the slate quarries of Penrhyn, Dinorwig and Blaenau Ffestiniog form part of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage Site, and Dinorwig is also home to one of the UK's major pumped storage power stations. Active limestone and hard-rock quarries across the country, the ports at Milford Haven and Holyhead, the Port Talbot steelworks transition and new wind, solar and grid projects make up much of the rest of our Welsh work.
Protected landscapes and heritage
Eryri, Bannau Brycheiniog and the Pembrokeshire Coast national parks, a long list of SSSIs and many scheduled monuments mean designations are part of most rural surveys. We check sites against Natural Resources Wales and Cadw records at planning stage. Flying over a scheduled monument does not in itself need consent, but disturbing the ground can, so we use non-invasive ground control targets on heritage sites.
For public bodies working under the Welsh Language Standards, we can produce reports with bilingual titles, cover pages and drawing annotations using translations you supply or approve, so deliverables fit your publication requirements.
02Airspace & permissions
We handle the permissions.
- Cardiff Airport sits within a Class D control zone and has a Flight Restriction Zone around Rhoose, with the MOD St Athan airfield close by to the west. Sites along this stretch of the Vale of Glamorgan coast need permission from air traffic control.
- RAF Valley on Anglesey is an intensively used fast-jet training base with protected airspace. Hawarden, home to the Airbus factory at Broughton, also has a Flight Restriction Zone.
- All of Wales lies within Low Flying Area 7 of the UK military low flying system, including the Mach Loop between Dolgellau and Machynlleth, where fast jets fly at very low level. We notify planned flights through the MOD's civil aircraft notification procedure where appropriate and keep a constant lookout.
- Military Danger Areas include the Aberporth range over Cardigan Bay, Castlemartin and Manorbier in Pembrokeshire, Pembrey Sands in Carmarthenshire and the Sennybridge training area in Powys. We check activity times before any work nearby.
- Upland sites in Eryri and Bannau Brycheiniog are exposed to strong winds and low cloud. Capture is scheduled around forecast weather windows with contingency days built in.
03Typical projects
What we survey in Wales
04FAQ
Drone surveys in Wales: FAQ
We provide the survey data that supports them: accurate LiDAR ground models captured to a repeatable specification, with difference models between surveys. The engineering assessment of each tip remains with the owner's or authority's geotechnical specialists, and our data is delivered in formats they can use directly.
It needs managing rather than avoiding. All of Wales is in Low Flying Area 7, so we notify planned flights through the MOD's civil aircraft notification procedure where appropriate, check Danger Area activity, keep flights at or below the height the survey needs and maintain a constant lookout, landing immediately if a military aircraft approaches.
Flying over a scheduled monument does not in itself require Cadw consent, but disturbing the ground can, so we use non-invasive ground control on heritage sites. For SSSIs, activities that could damage the site's special features may need Natural Resources Wales consent; we check each site and plan to avoid disturbance.
Yes. We can produce reports with bilingual titles, cover pages and drawing annotations using Welsh translations you supply or approve, so deliverables meet your Welsh Language Standards commitments.
Our crews are mobile rather than tied to regional offices and travel throughout Wales with all their equipment. South Wales is quickly reached via the M4, and projects in the north and mid-Wales are planned as multi-day deployments where needed.
Start a project
Tell us the outcome. We’ll specify the survey.
- 01We aim to reply within one hourA drone surveyor, not a salesperson, reviews your brief and calls if anything needs clarifying.
- 02Fixed quote & method statementScope, accuracy specification, deliverables, programme and RAMS — in writing.
- 03Fly, process, deliverCapture on your programme, then CAD-ready data with a verified accuracy report.