Shopping Centre-Case Study

​We were instructed by Westbrook Properties to capture aerial stills of Thamesgate, and Waterbourne walk shopping centres in Gravesend and Leighton buzzard, to allow them to mark off ownership boundaries.

​Our brief was to include every position of a compass, and capture different aerial perspectives of the sites.

Thamesgate shopping centre, Gravesend

​Gravesend was in class G airspace, and working alongside Savills, we agreed that the safest place to operate from would be the multi-story car park that was also owned by them. This enabled us to keep to legal distance requirements from the general public, having closed the top floors of the car park, for our sole use.
To capture the different angles of the site, we climbed the UAV (Drone) to a minimum altitude that would allow us to keep to the 50m separation bubble rule. Wind was still with gusts of 5mph, visibility was moderate.
Police were notified of our intentions on 101, and the job was completed at 7am to mitigate risk, and to minimise the disruption to the general public, and only required 2 flights.

Waterbourne walk, Leighton Buzzard

​Leighton Buzzard was also in class G airspace, and we agreed that the safest place to operate from would be the shopping centre roof, which again enabled us to maintain legal separation distances from the public.
The shopping centre is not open until 9am, but with a primary school being located in close proximity, we decided to again fly the mission at sunrise, 7am to minimise disruption and mitigate risk. Temperature that morning had fallen to -1 degrees, meaning that we needed to utilise our UAVs (drones) battery pre heater, to ensure the battery was only operated with a minimum temperature of 15 degrees. There was a thick ground frost, and low level fog to the distance, which made for some fantastic shooting.
Again the police were notified on 101, and the job was completed in 3 short flights, and wrapped up before 8am.

If you would like to know more about our Aerial Photography services, or to inquire about hiring a drone operator, you can get in touch with the team to discuss your project.