'We had people come just to see it': Amazon delivers its first UK parcels by drone

Amazon has become the first retailer in the UK to start a drone delivery service with a limited launch in Darlington, County Durham.

Packages weighing less than 5lb (2.2kg) and containing everyday items such as beauty products, batteries and cables are now being delivered within a 7.5 mile (12km) radius of Amazon's fulfilment centre.

The tech giant is convinced there is demand for ultra-fast deliveries and hopes to slowly expand the service.

Rob Shield let Amazon use an Airbnb on his farm for its first test runs. "Initially it was a novelty, so we were ordering everything under the sun," he says. "Pens, paper, chocolates - anything to make it keep coming."

His orders arrived in parcels the size of shoeboxes, which were dropped from a height of 12ft (3.6m) on to the front garden.

"We'd have people come just to see it," he says.

"Since then, you obviously start realising 'I actually need something today' like tape measures and stuff like that you're always losing - we just order it and it comes."

It's taken Amazon more than a decade to get this far but the company believes it will be worth it, and says customers are ready.

"The certainty is people have never told us they want their stuff slower," says David Carbon, vice president of Amazon Prime Air.

"If you've got kids and you want fever medication, you want it. You don't want to drive to the store," he says.

In the UK, Amazon's drones currently deliver within two hours, but Carbon says the current average delivery time in the US is 36 minutes.

Amazon will carry out a maximum ten flights an hour, or up to a hundred deliveries a day on weekdays.

Darlington is an interesting case study but shows drone deliveries are not easy, says Dr Anna Jackman, an associate professor of geography at the University of Reading.

"A lot of our demand for delivery services are in urban centres. They are very densely populated, very congested. And the reality is [drone deliveries] don't work well in high-rise buildings."

She added that while there are ideas to develop rooftop deliveries and centrally-located hubs "right now we're not there yet".

In Darlington, eligible customers will need a garden or yard for a drone delivery.

Drones are already being trialled by the NHS to deliver blood supplies in London, and Royal Mail is using them to send packages to remote communities in Orkney.

Amazon is using its most modern drone, the MK30, in Darlington.

Ithas sensors to avoid any obstacles in its path - from trampolines and washing lines to people and other aircraft.

As the drone approaches each drop-off point, it knows exactly where to release the package using GPS.

"This is effectively an autonomous drone that can do what a pilot does in a flight deck. It can do what ground crews do, and it can deliver a package," Carbon says.