CAA-Approved Site Documentation

Drone Site Surveys.

Compare quotes from specialist UK drone operators for complete site documentation — built for planning applications, pre-construction baselines, and development feasibility reports. Capture every boundary, contour, and existing structure in a single flight.

“Every drone pilot on this network is personally vetted by me — insurance, qualifications, flight history.”

Peter Leslie · Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

Trusted by site managers & agencies across the UK

Need a site surveyed?

Post your details to compare quotes from site-survey drone pilots.

A walking topo survey takes a week. A drone takes a morning.

Developers, architects, and planning consultants lose critical weeks to traditional ground surveys. Aerial capture rebuilds your entire site in a single flight — ready for planning portals, design teams, and investors.

Slow, Expensive Ground Surveys

A two-person topo team walking a 5-hectare brownfield site can take 4–6 days and cost £6k+ before you see any data. A drone captures the same ground in under three hours with denser point coverage.

Planning Applications Rejected

Local authority validation checklists increasingly demand a Location Plan, Site Plan, and existing conditions drawing. Send in sketches and your application stalls. A georeferenced drone orthomosaic gives the planning officer exactly what they need.

No Baseline When Works Begin

Without a dated pre-construction survey, claims over damaged neighbouring walls, lost levels, or missing trees become your word against theirs. A drone baseline locks down the "before" state on day one.

A site survey is only as good as the drone pilot's flight plan.

By Peter Leslie, Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

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I have seen too many "drone site surveys" delivered as a handful of oblique snapshots with no GCPs, no flight-line overlap, and no way to measure a thing from them. That data is worthless to a design team.

Every site-survey drone operator on this network flies pre-programmed grid missions with proper front and side overlap, lays ground control points that are RTK-tagged, and processes the imagery in industry-standard photogrammetry software so the output drops straight into AutoCAD, Civil 3D, or Revit.

That means your architect, engineer, or planning consultant opens the file once and gets on with the actual work.

Survey-Grade Workflows

GCP-Controlled & RTK Tagged

Deliverables your design team can drop straight into CAD.

Our network operators produce outputs that work out of the box with AutoCAD, QGIS, SketchUp, and Revit workflows.

High-Resolution Orthomosaic

A single seamless geo-referenced image of the entire site at 2–3 cm per pixel. Tied to OSGB36 so it lines up perfectly with Ordnance Survey base mapping and existing CAD drawings.

Site-Plan Overlay

Your orthomosaic overlaid with existing OS Mastermap, red-line boundaries, and site constraints. Ready for direct submission with a planning application or design team review.

Textured 3D Site Model

A navigable 3D mesh of the whole site including buildings, vegetation, and terrain. Share with investors, export to SketchUp, or use for cut-and-fill volume calculations.

Book your site survey in 3 steps.

We connect you with the specific site-documentation specialists you need, instantly.

Describe the Site

Give us the site address, its approximate size, the survey purpose (planning, feasibility, pre-construction), and the deliverable format your design team needs.

Compare Specialists

We route your brief to qualified mapping drone pilots in your region. You receive competitive quotes with output formats, accuracy statements, and turnaround times.

Capture & Deliver

Your drone pilot flies the grid mission, processes the imagery, and delivers a full survey package — orthomosaic, overlays, and 3D model — via secure cloud link.

Start Your Project Brief

Turning planning weeks into planning days.

See how developers, planning consultants, and architects rely on drone site surveys through our network.

"Our topographic team had quoted six working days for a 12-hectare residential site. The drone operator from this platform flew it in a morning and delivered a cleaner orthomosaic than anything we had seen before. Planning went in a week early."

Daniel Pritchard

Development Director, Leeds

"We needed a robust pre-construction baseline before the contractor moved on site. The 3D model and dated orthomosaic gave us an unarguable before-state — which saved us when a neighbour later claimed we had damaged their boundary wall."

Fiona Henderson

Project Manager, Bristol

"As a planning consultant I specified a drone site-plan overlay for a tricky green-belt feasibility. The deliverable slotted into our validation pack without any reformatting. The planning officer rang to compliment the quality of evidence."

Harriet Bowes

Planning Consultant, Norwich

Site Survey FAQ

Technical questions on accuracy, deliverables, and planning use.

Is a drone site survey accurate enough for a planning application?

Yes. With properly-laid ground control points, a drone survey delivers 2–3 cm horizontal accuracy — well within the tolerance local authorities expect for a Location Plan, Site Plan, or existing-conditions drawing. The output is geo-tied to OSGB36 so it overlays directly onto OS base mapping.

How large a site can be surveyed in a single day?

A typical multi-rotor site mission covers 10–20 hectares per flying day at high resolution. For larger estates or corridor jobs, drone operators fly fixed-wing or VTOL platforms that can capture 100 ha+ in a single shift. Tell us the site size in the brief and we will route to drone pilots with the right platform.

What file formats do I receive?

Standard outputs are GeoTIFF orthomosaic, DXF/DWG site-plan overlay, and OBJ/FBX textured 3D model. We can also supply LAS point clouds, contour DXFs, and KML overlays for Google Earth on request. Every file is geo-referenced and ready to drop into AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, or QGIS.

Can you re-fly the same site to track progress?

Absolutely. Many clients book a baseline flight at site handover and then recurring monthly or quarterly captures throughout construction. Because each flight uses the same GCPs and flight grid, the outputs are directly comparable — ideal for progress reporting, earthworks volume tracking, and change detection.