A CALL for drones to be banned from flying over public places in Denbighshire has won support from county councillors and is to be investigated further.

At a meeting members voted by 26 votes to five for a report to be put together on the regulatory framework relating to drones and if the council had any power to introduce restrictions.

There were two abstentions to the motion put forward by Rhuddlan councillor Arwel Roberts. The findings will be presented to the scrutiny committee.

Speaking at the meeting, held at County Hall in Ruthin, Cllr Roberts said: “It has been brought to my notice by the people of Rhuddlan that there are an abundance of drones going around our county.

”If you have a licence to have a drone – fine, but there are people who are amateur and they aren’t controlled.”

Cllr Rhys Hughes supported Cllr Roberts and drew on his own experience.

”My wife and I were driving when out of the air comes a piece of metal about a metre-long coming straight for us,” he said.

“We both ducked and under the car. It went. If it had been one thousandth of a second sooner, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t mind a bit more debate about this [issue].”

But Cllr Stuart Davies said: “If we do get a bylaw in place, who is going to enforce it? We can only just manage dog poo enforcement.”

And Cllr David Simmons, who is also deputy chairman of Rhyl RNLI, said that drones were valuable when it came to searching for missing people.

“The ability of a drone to spot a head in the water is far greater than standing on a lifeboat,” he said.

And Cllr Anton Sampson said: “We finally find a toy that gets children in the fresh air rather than sitting on their armchairss playing with their iPads and what do we do? We want to ban it, don’t we.”

Gary Williams, Head of Legal and Democratic Services , said: “I can do a report to scrutiny and any powers that we have.