Lifting Plan Requirements: What LOLER Expects on Site

Pro Site Docs · Guide

The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) are short, but regulation 8 carries most of the weight: every lifting operation must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised, and carried out in a safe manner. The lift plan is how you prove the first of those.

What counts as a lifting operation

Anything that lifts or lowers a load using lifting equipment: cranes, excavators used for lifting, telehandlers, hoists, MEWPs lifting people, lorry loaders, gin wheels. The duty applies whether the lift is a 200-tonne crane or a 360 lifting a drainage ring off a wagon. The planning is proportionate, but it is never nothing.

Who plans it

LOLER says a competent person. For crane work the industry standard is BS 7121, which uses the term appointed person — someone with the training and experience to plan the lift, select the equipment and write the method. For routine lifts with excavators and telehandlers, a trained lift supervisor or site manager usually plans them under a generic lift plan, with the specific loads and positions confirmed on the day.

What a lift plan contains

• The load — weight (verified, not guessed), dimensions, centre of gravity, lifting points
• The equipment — make and model, configuration, rated capacity at the working radius, and evidence of thorough examination
• Accessories — slings, shackles, chains, with their safe working loads and examination dates
• Ground — bearing capacity, outrigger mats, underground services, voids
• Position — set-up point, radius, slew, exclusion zone
• Environment — wind limits, overhead lines, proximity to the public or other trades
• People — the appointed person, lift supervisor, crane operator and slinger/signaller, named, with their tickets
• Communication — signals or radios, and what happens if contact is lost
• Sequence — step by step, including how the load is landed and released
• Emergency arrangements — what stops the lift, and rescue for anyone lifted

Thorough examination intervals

Regulation 9 requires lifting equipment to be thoroughly examined by a competent person:

• every 6 months for lifting accessories, and for equipment used to lift people
• every 12 months for other lifting equipment
• or in accordance with a written examination scheme drawn up by the competent person
• and after any exceptional circumstance liable to affect its safety

The report of thorough examination has to be available on site. No current report means the equipment does not lift.

Where it usually fails

The lift plan exists but the load weight on it is a guess. The slinger's ticket expired. The excavator's lifting configuration is not the one on the certificate. The exclusion zone is drawn on the plan and not on the ground. Each of these has been written up in an HSE prosecution. A lift plan is a live document — the lift supervisor briefs it, checks it against what is actually in front of them, and stops the job if the two do not match.

Get the documents ready-made

Our Lifting Operations Pack covers lift plans, lifting accessory registers and RAMS for crane and excavator lifts, or take lifting operations RAMS on their own.

General guidance only. This article explains how the rules generally work in UK construction. It is not advice for your specific site, task or project, and it is not legal advice. Your own risk assessment, method statement and arrangements must be prepared and checked by a competent person for the actual work being done.