A drone survey firm covering Topsham

Topsham is one of the easiest places on this list to reach. It is a short run down the estuary road and, being that close, a survey here can usually be fitted into an existing day rather than needing a day of its own. That matters for small jobs: a single cottage roof is often awkward to get a firm to travel for, and here it is not.

It also makes the weather less of an obstacle. A flight that gets postponed because the wind is running up the estuary can be picked up two or three days later without anyone rearranging much, which is not the case for a job at the far end of Cornwall.

The historic core here is dense and much of it is listed: merchant houses with Dutch-influenced gables, natural slate and clay pantile, lead and zinc detailing, and cottages packed tight along The Strand and behind the quay. Getting a ladder or a tower near any of that is a problem before it is even a cost, and on a listed building an access scaffold can be an application in its own right.

A survey flown from the air touches nothing. It also reaches the parts of these roofs that an access visit struggles with anyway: the rear slopes that back onto other properties, the valleys between neighbouring buildings, and the parapet detailing behind a gable that cannot be seen from any street.

The estuary keeps the air damp and salt-laden all year, and the town takes the full run of wind up the water from the south, which drives rain hard against the south-west facing slopes. Fixings and flashings work harder here than a mile inland, and lead and zinc detailing that would sit quietly elsewhere moves and lifts.

For an owner or an agent that is an argument for a shorter interval between condition records rather than for an alarm. A building photographed the same way two years running gives you a direction of travel, and on a coastal-influenced property that direction is the thing worth knowing. Being fifteen minutes from the base is what makes that pattern affordable to run.

Bowling Green Marsh and the surrounding water also mean birdlife is a genuine planning point rather than a formality. Flights are planned to keep clear, and where the marsh side of a property is the part that needs photographing, the timing gets chosen accordingly.

The practical problem in the old town is not flying, it is standing. The streets around the quay are narrow, parking is short, and the Goat Walk side gives water on one flank and gardens on the other. Finding a take off point with a clear view of the aircraft throughout takes a short walk rather than a guess.

It is worth mentioning when you enquire if the property is on one of the tighter lanes. Knowing in advance means the visit is planned around it instead of half an hour being spent finding somewhere to stand.