Forklift Truck Inspections In Shropshire
Lift Truck Thorough Examinations
A truck working beyond the date on its last report should not be lifting anything. Send GSB Inspections the machines and attachments you run, along with the site postcode, and we aim to return a quote within 48 hours.
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Tell us what trucks you have and where the site is. We aim to come back with a quote within 48 hours.
Forklift Truck Inspections In Shropshire
Lift Truck Thorough Examinations
Report run out, or dates slipping? Send your truck list and site postcode and we aim to quote within 48 hours.
A Service Is Not A Thorough Examination
Ask a yard when its trucks were last checked and the answer is usually the date of the last service. The two are not interchangeable, and treating them as though they are is how machines end up working with no valid cover behind them. A working truck attracts three separate checks: the driver’s look round at the start of the shift, the maintenance visit at the manufacturer’s intervals, and the thorough examination by a competent person that Regulation 9 of LOLER actually demands. HSE puts it beyond doubt, stating that an inspection carried out as part of a maintenance scheme or a scheduled service is not a thorough examination.
That statutory examination is all we do. No workshop sits behind us, no parts counter, no service agreement to defend, so what appears in the report is what the engineer found on the machine. Send a list of your trucks and we will tell you what is due and what it costs.
When A Shropshire Truck Falls Out Of Date
Twelve months is the longest a truck lifting goods can go between examinations. Two situations cut that to six. A machine carrying a working platform or man-cage counts as equipment used to lift people. And lifting accessories, meaning the slings, chains and shackles hanging in the workshop, carry a six-month requirement of their own whatever they happen to be attached to.
Attachments cause most of the gaps we find. Permanently fitted ones travel with the truck at its own interval. Anything swapped during the week, whether clamps, rotators, jibs, bale spikes or fork extensions, becomes a separate item due at least twice a year. On farms in particular these rarely appear on anybody’s list.
Events can also overtake the calendar. A machine assembled or installed on site is examined before it lifts for the first time, and any truck that has been overloaded, struck something or tipped is examined before it returns to work, whatever the paperwork says is due.
Lift Trucks We Examine Across Shropshire
Shropshire divides more sharply than most counties, and the machines follow the division. Telford and Wrekin is among the most manufacturing-intensive places in the country, with engineering and manufacturing accounting for roughly 15.5 per cent of local jobs, well over double the national figure. That means counterbalance and reach trucks working hard indoors on shift patterns. The rest of the county is overwhelmingly rural, employing several times the national share of agricultural workers, and there the machine of choice is the telehandler, working outdoors on rough ground with attachments changing through the day.
We examine both halves. Counterbalance trucks in diesel, LPG and electric, reach trucks, very narrow aisle machines and order pickers, powered pallet trucks and stackers, side loaders and multi-directional trucks, rough terrain forklifts, telescopic handlers and truck-mounted forklifts, along with the attachments used on them.
Each machine is covered across the lifting elements LOLER concerns itself with, the mast, rams, hydraulics, chains, forks and carriage, and then the brakes, steering, tyres and operator restraint, which fall to PUWER. A report on half a machine leaves the other half unaccounted for. Where work equipment needs looking at more broadly, that is our PUWER assessments in Shropshire.
GSB Inspection Services
Covering All Of Shropshire
We cover the county in full, from Whitchurch and Market Drayton in the north through Telford, Shrewsbury and Newport, down to Bridgnorth, Church Stretton and Ludlow, and west to Oswestry. Shropshire has no county council at all. Shropshire Council has been a unitary authority since April 2009, when the old county council and its six districts merged into one, and Telford and Wrekin has run its own borough independently since 1998.
Rural sites are routine for us rather than awkward. Farms, estates and contractors’ yards are often the places where telehandlers and their attachments have gone longest without a proper look, and they are no harder to reach than an industrial estate. Operators with trucks at several locations should say so when enquiring and we will look at grouping them so renewal dates stay together.
What Happens When Our Engineer Is On Site
Visits run quickly where the machines are genuinely standing free when our engineer turns up.
1
Machines not working.
Off the job rather than part-way through one, keys to hand, and loose attachments gathered rather than scattered round the yard. Waiting on a machine still in use is what turns one visit into two.
2
Somebody who knows them.
One person able to say what each machine is, where it works, how hard, and whether anything has been damaged since the last visit. Old reports help if you have them; we manage without.
3
Each machine is taken in turn across its lifting components and safety-critical parts, with functional checks where condition warrants them. Attachments are examined in their own right rather than assumed covered by the truck.
4
Anything dangerous, said there and then.
If a machine should stop working, you are told in person before our engineer leaves. That is a legal obligation on the competent person, not a matter of courtesy or timing.
Why Shropshire Operators Choose GSB
What a thorough examination produces is a list of faults on your machines. It is worth asking who profits from that list being long.
Inspections are the whole of our business. No trucks, no parts, no attachments, no maintenance cover, so a defect written up by our competent person arrives with no quotation behind it and earns us nothing at all. Across most of the country the firm examining a truck is the same firm servicing it, and the LOLER Approved Code of Practice speaks to exactly that, expecting the examiner to be sufficiently independent and impartial to give an objective opinion.
People also want someone who can answer the question. Ring 01782 855481 and you get one of two directors, both senior engineers and joint owners of the business. Shropshire is straightforward ground for us from Stoke-on-Trent.
What Your Report Of Thorough Examination Contains
There is no such legal document as a LOLER certificate. Regulation 10 requires a report of thorough examination, and Schedule 1 sets out what it must contain. Layout is left open; contents are not, and a report missing a Schedule 1 item has stopped doing its job.
Every report is tied to one machine through its make, model and serial number, and records the safe working load, the date examined, the date the next falls due, who carried it out, and any defect with a deadline for putting it right. Reports are issued electronically and written to be handed straight to an insurer, an auditor or an inspector.
One duty surprises people. Where a defect is found that is, or may become, a danger to anyone, the competent person has to tell you immediately and send a copy of the report to the enforcing authority. The obligation falls on the examiner rather than on you, which is the clearest reason of all to use somebody who gains nothing from the repair that follows.
Our Commitment To Your Safety
We Are A Proud Associate Member Of The Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed)
GSB Inspections is an associate member of the Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed), the trade body representing independent engineering inspection in the UK. Examinations follow SAFed’s published technical guidance for lifting equipment, together with HSE’s Approved Code of Practice L113 and the L117 guidance on rider-operated lift trucks. Few external tests of competence exist in this market, which is reason enough to ask any provider what they actually hold.
How To Book A Forklift Inspection In Shropshire
No portal to sign up to and no qualifying call. The first step takes a couple of minutes.
1
List what you run
Email info@gsbinspections.co.uk or use the form here. Rough makes, models and numbers will do, plus attachments and the site postcode. Where nobody is sure what a machine is, a photograph of the data plate answers it.
2
Get a price back
A quote normally follows inside 48 hours, priced on the machines and the site rather than on assumptions about their condition. If anything has already lapsed, say so and we will be honest about what that means for dates.
3
Agree when
Machines examine best when they are standing still, so tell us what suits, whether a shutdown, an early start, a quiet spell between seasons or access outside normal hours, and we will say honestly what our schedule allows.
4
Before we attend we agree what is being examined and which interval applies to each item, so nothing turns up missing on the day. Detachable attachments are the usual omission, bale spikes and buckets included.
5
The visit itself
Our engineer works through the machines on site, raises anything serious with you face to face, and issues a report of thorough examination for each item covering the Schedule 1 requirements.
6
Once it is done
Each report carries its own next-due date, which is what stops renewals sliding. Acting on any defect inside the stated timescale is your duty as dutyholder. We take no part in the repair and have nothing to sell you afterwards.
GSB Inspections Reviews
Client Satisfaction
Excellent service & communications
Gary Jackson
Great bloke, reliable, informative, pleasure to deal with.
Gary Jackson
Great service. Would highly recommend and will use again.
Jade Furey
Service, communication, support and advice has been excellent, Garry has gone out of his way to support our school with issues arisen from council maintenance, he has gone out of... read more
Miss H Morrey
Gary has been doing MPi ltd's lifting certifications, air compressor tank and roller shutter door inspections for a number of years now. I have always found him a pleasure to... read more
matt page
Excellent service, very thorough and practical
Kerry Callear
Gary has been doing our certifications for the last few years. Very professional and very reliable. A**
Rob Scanlan
Excellent service very competent knowledgeable and professional staff Would highly recommend
Carl Eades
Prompt and professional friendly service.
Apples & Pears Nursery
Inspected transferable winch units with, greatly appreciated, additional guidance covering separate requirements for accompanying D shackles and inspection schedule. Very diligent service and great value.
Andrew Piekarczyk
My first contact was with Gary and he dealt with my query and questions brilliantly. He explained the process, it was easy to sort and it went smoothly. Expected contact... read more
Mrs B
Been using GSB for a year, great service keeping all our plant and machinery in certification
James Plant
Well what a great service Gary provides, always does a very thorough job, can't recommend enough, we always Gary really great guy.
Daz Griffiths
Useful Shropshire Resources
Website: hse.gov.uk
HSE’s hub for lift trucks, including its guidance on thorough examination and the distinction between examination, servicing and the operator’s pre-use check. ACOP L117 covers rider-operated lift trucks specifically.
Website: shropshire.gov.uk
The unitary authority for the county outside Telford and Wrekin, unitary since April 2009. Its environmental health team is the enforcing authority for warehousing, retail, offices, hotels and catering, and leisure premises in its area, holding the same powers to serve improvement and prohibition notices as an HSE inspector.
Website: telford.gov.uk
A separate unitary authority since 1998, administering the borough independently. The same enforcement split applies within its boundary, which matters here because Telford and Wrekin holds the densest concentration of manufacturing in the county.
Website: safed.co.uk
The trade association for the UK’s independent engineering inspection industry. SAFed publishes the technical guidance its members work to for the thorough examination of lifting equipment. GSB Inspections is an associate member.
Got Questions? (FAQs)
LOLER fixes the interval, so it does not change from county to county. A machine lifting goods goes no longer than twelve months. Fit a working platform or man-cage and it becomes six, because the machine is then lifting people. Lifting accessories such as slings and chains sit on six months regardless. A competent person can shorten any of these through an examination scheme where the work justifies it.
No, and it is the misunderstanding we meet most often. HSE states that an inspection carried out as part of a preventive maintenance scheme or a scheduled service is not a thorough examination. Servicing keeps a machine working; the examination is a statutory check by a competent person that produces a written report under Regulation 10. A well-serviced truck with no valid report is still non-compliant.
Yes. A telehandler lifting a load is lifting equipment, and Regulation 9 applies to it exactly as it applies to a counterbalance truck in a warehouse. The interval is twelve months for lifting goods. Attachments are where farms most often come unstuck, because bale spikes, buckets, forks and grabs that come on and off are separate items requiring examination in their own right.
It depends on the main activity at the premises, under the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1998. Manufacturing, construction and agriculture fall to HSE, which covers both halves of the Shropshire economy. Warehousing, distribution, retail and offices fall to Shropshire Council or Telford and Wrekin Council depending on where you sit. The LOLER duty is identical either way.
The machine comes out of use until it has been examined. The regulations contain no grace period, and a lapsed report is one of the first things an inspector or auditor looks for. Tell us when you enquire and we will be straight with you about the earliest date we can offer.
Only where they are permanently fitted, in which case they are examined with it at the machine’s interval. Anything removable, from clamps and rotators to jibs, bale spikes and fork extensions, is a separate item due at least every six months. Slings, chains and shackles are lifting accessories on that same cycle.
Not in law. Regulation 10 requires a report of thorough examination and Schedule 1 lists what must be in it. The word certificate gets used loosely throughout the trade and does no harm in itself, but what counts is whether the document contains every Schedule 1 item and identifies the individual machine.
Someone with enough practical and theoretical knowledge of the machine to find defects and judge what they mean for continued safe use. The Approved Code of Practice adds that they should be sufficiently independent and impartial to give an objective opinion, which is a difficult test to pass when the same business profits from the repair work.
All of it. LOLER covers the lifting side, meaning mast, chains, forks, hydraulics and carriage. Brakes, steering, tyres and operator restraint belong to PUWER. LOLER does not replace PUWER on a lift truck, so we work through both rather than handing over a report covering half the machine.
It rests with whoever owns, operates or controls the equipment, which takes in hired machines while you are using them. Hire firms generally supply a report, but the responsibility for checking a valid one exists stays with you. Where a machine leaves your undertaking, you must also be able to produce a written copy of its examination record.
If it was assembled or installed on site, yes, before its first lift. One delivered complete, carrying a Declaration of Conformity under a year old and needing no assembly, does not, although the twelve-month clock starts running from that point.
No. Inspections are all we sell, so a long defect list gains us nothing whatsoever. The report goes to whoever maintains your machines, which is usually an arrangement you already have.
GSB Inspection Services
Forklift Inspection Service Areas In Shropshire
This is not an exhaustive list. We examine lift trucks and telehandlers across the whole county and Telford and Wrekin, and we are constantly expanding our reach. If your site sits outside these areas, send us your truck list and we will tell you plainly whether we can cover it.
- Telford
- Shrewsbury
- Oswestry
- Bridgnorth
- Ludlow
- Market Drayton
- Whitchurch
- Newport
- Wellington
- Wem
- Shifnal
- Church Stretton
- Much Wenlock
- Broseley
Require A Forklift Inspection In Shropshire?
No brokers, no call centre, and nothing to sell you off the back of what we find.
Send your truck list and site postcode using the form below, or email info@gsbinspections.co.uk. We aim to come back with a quote within 48 hours. Mention any machine already running past its date.
info@gsbinspections.co.uk
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01782 855481
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