Amazon has launched drone deliveries in Darlington, County Durham, following test flights earlier this year, with two-hour deliveries of lightweight items available to premises located 7.5 miles or less from the company’s local warehouse.

A range of products weighing under 5lb, including beauty products, batteries, cables, measuring tapes and chocolates can be flown to local properties that have a front yard or back garden.

The parcels, about the size of shoeboxes, are then dropped 12ft to the ground from a hovering MK30 drone.

An Amazon MK30 drone drops a parcel onto a lawn in Darlington, County Durham. Image credit: BBC Rubber gloves

Local resident Rob Shield, who allowed Amazon to use an Airbnb on his property for test flights, told the BBC he initially ordered items such as pens, paper and rubber gloves as a novelty to keep the drone coming back.

Another local resident told the news service she might use a drone delivery once, but would prefer to stick to using a human, while a third person called the idea as “nutty as a fruitcake”.

The company offers deliveries within two hours, but said in US trials average delivery time is 36 minutes.

It has obtained temporary approval from the Civil Aviation Authority up to the end of the year for the service, and plans to carry out a maximum of ten flights an hour, or up to 100 deliveries a day on weekdays.

After developing drone-delivery technologies for more than a decade, Amazon currently offers drone deliveries in five US states.

Image credit: Amazon Test case

It said it has carried out more than 170,000 flights safely – although in February, a drone in Dallas clipped the side of an apartment building and crashed, after having lost its GPS signal.

A year ago, the company paused US drone deliveries following drone crashes, but resumed them in April.

Flights in Darlington are outside line-of-sight but are monitored by an operator on Amazon’s premises, who can liaise if needed with airport traffic controllers.

The offering is a test case – Amazon’s only such service outside the US – chosen because of the mix of residential areas, major roads and an airport in proximity to an Amazon warehouse, allowing the company to test varying conditions within a small space.

Darlington Borough Council said it granted Amazon only temporary planning permission due to the unprecedented nature of the project, “to allow for testing of the drone delivery concept”.