Stage three of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men runs from Hull to Beverley on 4 September, out along the coast through Withernsea, Hornsea and Skipsea before turning inland to the finish. The Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority confirms the date and the start and finish towns.
The BBC reported on 3 September that "a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) warning has been issued over the county up to an altitude of 2,700 ft (823m) between 08:45 and 15:45 BST". It reported separately, without attaching a time to it, that "Humberside Police said anyone who wishes to fly a drone in the area 'must obtain permission' from its drone team". The force was reported as discouraging drone flying "to maximise safety to the public and other aircraft which will be operating" including police drones and media filming from the air.
What we could and could not confirm
We could not corroborate those terms anywhere outside that one BBC report. Humberside Police's own site would not load for us, and the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority carries the race without mentioning the airspace side.
The report also appears to have been revised since it was published. The version we read is headed "Drone restrictions during Tour of Britain race" and describes a NOTAM warning. Copies circulating elsewhere still carry the earlier and firmer wording of a ban and of an order prohibiting flying, and the web address of the article itself still describes a ban. We have quoted the current text, and the change is worth knowing about if you saw the earlier version.
Two figures matter to an operator and both rest on that single report: the 2,700 ft ceiling and the 08:45 to 15:45 BST window. We are repeating them because they are the only published figures, not because we have checked them.
We also searched the Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) Regulations on legislation.gov.uk for anything covering this county or these dates and found nothing, with recent event restrictions for other events present in the same index as a check that we were looking in the right place. So on what we can see, the operative documents here are the notice itself and the police request, rather than a statutory restricted area. Those are not the same instrument, and the terms that bind you are the ones written in the notice, not the ones in a news report or in this article.
What to actually do
Do not fly on our figures. Pull the notice yourself through the pre-flight information bulletin on the NATS aeronautical information service, which is the authoritative record of what has been notified and for exactly what area, height and times, and speak to Humberside Police's drone team if any part of your site falls inside it.
Bear in mind that a notice covers an area and a height band rather than a strip of road, so a survey or inspection flight a few fields from the route can still sit within it. Ground access may be awkward too: the same report says rolling road closures will be put in place for a short time before the race passes through, and that the roads will be closed for about 30 to 40 minutes as riders pass, which it attributes to officials.
The wider point for operators
Event restrictions appear at short notice and are easy to miss, because nothing in a routine app check will necessarily flag a one-day notice issued for a bike race. They are published as notices to airmen and checking them is part of planning any job.
It is worth building that into how you quote work as well. A client booking a roof survey for a particular date has no idea that a sporting event forty miles away might put their site under a notice, and finding out on the morning is expensive for everybody. A check when the date is agreed, rather than when the van is loaded, avoids most of it.
The race continues into North Yorkshire and finishes at Earlston in the Scottish Borders on 6 September, so operators further along the route should expect the same pattern on their own stage days and check their own airspace before they fly.