A GREAT Harwood company has hit upon an innovative way of boosting the construction industry as the UK begins to emerge from lockdown.

Networx3 Drones have been using their airborn devices to keep building sites safe by monitoring employees to ensure that social distancing regulations are abided by.

The construction industry could be key to the national economy in the wake of the pandemic and so any way that workers can be made safer could prove crucial.

Networx3 commercial director Caroline Earnshaw said: “What Networx3 Drones does on building sites is not commonplace at the moment, but we think drones are a game-changer for the construction industry.”

She added: “Using our drone technology to keep people safe, and distant, while at work is something that increasingly construction companies, developers and insurers are keen to do.

“Construction sites usually have a wide variety of people visiting and doing walkthroughs – from investors and surveyors to safety inspectors and stakeholders.

“With social distancing and travel restrictions curtailing those visits it makes sense to use drones to do some of that work.”

The company’s drone design has a zoom function so powerful that it says it can pick up a crystal-clear image of a dead fly on a car windscreen from 400ft up in the air.

As well as social distancing, the drones can also make sure that workers are equipped with PPE as well as monitoring more conventional safety regulations.

Ms Earnshaw said: “We think that the safety, cost-saving and increased productivity that drones offer the industry during this pandemic will mean we never go back to how it was before. Why send a person onto a busy and potentially hazardous building site when their job can be done by a drone hovering above?

“You can have a drone operator, who doesn’t have to interact with anyone on site, complete a site review and have that footage live streamed around the world so that everyone watching can see how work’s progressing in real time,” she added.