You need a licence / insurance to drive a road vehicle because the road is a shared space where you can potentially collide with other road users. Existing UK regulations mean non-commercial drones should not be operated near people (without consent) nor in an airspace shared with aircraft (carrying people). If people follow the current rules drones should not present a danger to anyone except other drones. What's needed is a means to better enforce the current laws, and detect / intercept illegal drone use in some areas.
If you charge a licence / insurance fee to non-commercial drone users that will kill the hobby and deter interest in the technology which will impact the UK's future competitiveness in this area, At the very least, flying drones over private land with the land owner's permission should be permitted without any licence.
An app / website to clarify the whereabouts of restricted airspaces is a good idea, but to expect all existing (non new) GPS drones to be integrated with this app is not going to happen. What's needed is a standard data format (like XML) for geofencing data that governments can publish and all GPS drone makers can support importing to their proprietary controller software.
If the authorities want the power to enforce temporary no fly zones at some events, fair enough. Perhaps the converse should be to define some permissive areas for drone users well away from flight paths, allowing flight >400ft altitude?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
