Council-owned vacant/derelict land in the Glasgow area, football-pitch sized, scored for site quality and member travel — and hard-filtered to drop anything with a home within 50 m of the site, which for FPV is the make-or-break test. Browse it all interactively in the Site Explorer (tick “Clear of homes”); full data in outputs/all_scored_sites.csv.
Screening real building footprints (OpenStreetMap) against each site changed the picture completely. Most council sites in the Glasgow area have housing within 50 m — including six of the seven sites we first shortlisted. Once those are removed, a genuinely flyable leaderboard emerges: 138 sites clear the filters, and the best of them are open ground with no home within ~175 m.
Top recommendation: the former Rugby Pitch off Cumbernauld Road (Glasgow). It’s open, pitch-shaped recreational land with no home within 175 m, ~18 min average drive for the current members (26 min closer than the castle), and it tops the ranking. Second is Glenconner Park — former recreation land the council itself has flagged “uneconomic to develop”, which makes it an easy Community Asset Transfer ask.
The 50 m figure is your member’s; confirm it with BMFA. The standard Open- category A3 distance from residential areas is 150 m. If 150 m applies, the list shrinks further toward the “no home within 175 m” sites below — change
HOUSING_GAP_Minanalysis/find_sites.pyand re-run to see it.
| # | Score | Site | Council | Size | Former use | Nearest home | Avg member |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +12 | Rugby Pitch, Cumbernauld Rd ⭐ | Glasgow | 1.38 ha | Recreation | none <175 m | 14.1 km |
| 2 | +12 | Wellfield St / Croftbank St | Glasgow | 0.95 ha | ex-housing | none <175 m | 13.3 km |
| 3 | +12 | Craigendmuir St | Glasgow | 0.87 ha | ex-housing | none <175 m | 13.3 km |
| 4 | +12 | West of 1159 Royston Rd (by M80) | Glasgow | 1.39 ha | ex-housing | 167 m | 13.5 km |
| 5 | +11 | Glenconner Park, Charles St ⭐ | Glasgow | 0.50 ha | Recreation | 105 m | 13.1 km |
| 6 | +11 | 4-10 Stonyhurst St | Glasgow | 1.40 ha | ex-housing | none <175 m | 13.4 km |
| 7 | +11 | Greenside Cres | Glasgow | 0.78 ha | ex-housing | none <175 m | 13.6 km |
| 8 | +11 | Opp 112-132 Strathmore Rd | Glasgow | 1.38 ha | — | 124 m | 14.0 km |
The two former recreation grounds (⭐) are the strongest for a drone course — open, flat, already recreational. The rest are cleared housing plots that are now genuinely isolated (no neighbouring homes within the gap): fine on the separation test and openness, though a site visit matters more to confirm surface and access.
The one survivor from the original shortlist — 1.98 ha, nearest home 169 m, clear — but ~31 km from the members, so it ranks lower on travel. Kept as the “room to grow” option if distance isn’t a dealbreaker.
python3 analysis/housing.py --build to finish them.