Drone services in Bude

There is nothing between Bude and the Atlantic, and that is the fact that governs every roof in the town. Gales arrive with full force and full salt content, and they do it repeatedly rather than occasionally.

Gales here regularly strip ridge tiles and lift shallow-pitch coverings on the cliff-top estates. That is not a rare event, it is a normal winter, and owners who have moved from inland are often surprised by the pace of it.

Salt does the slower half of the damage. Fixings, flashings, metalwork and anything galvanised age visibly faster than the same components a few miles inland, and the corrosion is usually well advanced before anything looks wrong from the ground.

Rendered parapets on the resort villas take both at once, and a blown patch of render on a parapet is a route straight into the structure behind it.

A large share of the property here is holiday lets, bungalows and chalets, much of it owned by people who live elsewhere and visit for part of the year.

That is the ownership pattern that lets a small problem grow, because nobody is there in February when the ridge goes and nobody notices until a guest reports a damp patch in July.

A pre-season and post-season check is the sensible routine, and it is considerably cheaper than the repair that follows an unnoticed winter.

Flat felt roofs on bungalows and holiday units are the other recurring subject, and they fail in the usual ways, only faster here because of the wind pressure and the salt.

Bude Canal, the sea lock, Summerleaze and Crooklets are the town's assets and they photograph well from height, which is why holiday businesses and property here ask for aerial images routinely.

Beach and clifftop flights are planned around where people actually are, which in season means early morning rather than the middle of the day.

Compass Point and the cliff frontage need the same care that any cliff work does: the drop, the footpath traffic and the protected status of parts of the coast are all planned around in advance.

Away from the front, the modern estates at Stratton and Flexbury are conventional concrete interlocking tile with a slightly easier life, though easier here still means harder than most of Devon.

The recurring findings are the ordinary ones, ridge bedding, verge mortar, slipped tiles, but the interval between them is shorter than an inland owner would expect.

The surrounding farmland brings the usual agricultural work as well: sheds, tracks, drainage and boundaries across open ground that takes a long time to walk.

Travel from Exeter is a long run up the A30 and across, so work in this corner is planned rather than fitted in, and pairing jobs is the sensible way to do it.