A drone survey firm covering Cullompton

Cullompton is motorway-adjacent in a way very few towns in Devon are. Junction 28 puts the town within about twenty minutes of the Exeter base with almost none of it on slow road, so in travel terms it behaves like somewhere considerably closer than the mileage suggests.

That has a practical result worth knowing if you manage property here. A short-notice visit is realistic, and a job here fits neatly on the front or back of any run further north to Tiverton, Wellington or Taunton, all of which sit on the same road. Two buildings on this corridor in the same week is a far easier ask than two buildings the same distance apart on different roads.

The industrial estates here carry profiled metal sheet over large spans, and the enquiries that come from them are usually commercial: a facilities contact, a landlord or an incoming tenant who wants the roof recorded before a lease event. Those jobs come with paperwork requirements, which is why the insurance certificate and the operator registration numbers go out with the quote rather than afterwards.

The other half of the town is domestic and older: a medieval and Georgian core along Fore Street, cob and thatch in the surrounding lanes, then a very large volume of late twentieth century estate housing and continuing new-build expansion. The estate housing is mostly concrete interlocking tile, which is the easiest covering on this whole list to read from the air, and the new-build growth means a steady run of defects-period enquiries where the owner wants the outside recorded before a warranty window closes.

The town sits on the flat of the Culm valley, which holds damp and frost, so thatch and shaded slate both stay wet longer than the higher ground either side of the valley. On a survey that shows as heavier organic growth on north slopes and slower drying after rain, and it is worth a line in a report because it changes how a photograph should be read.

For flight planning the flat ground is helpful. Take off positions are easy to find, sight lines are long, and there is very little of the terrain-driven awkwardness that makes a hill town harder work. The motorway itself is a fixed consideration rather than an obstacle: flights are planned to keep the aircraft well clear of the carriageway and away from anything that could distract a driver.

The older core carries some buildings of real importance, including St Andrew's Church with its Lane Aisle and The Walronds, a Jacobean merchant's house on Fore Street. On a street like that, access equipment is disruptive to neighbours and to trade even where it is technically possible.

A survey flown from a nearby open position records the roof, the parapet and the rear slopes without a single item of equipment touching the pavement, which is usually the difference between a building being looked at and being left another year.