Factories Act 1961

27 Cranes and other lifting machines

(1) All parts and working gear, whether fixed or moveable, including the anchoring and fixing appliances, of every lifting machine shall be of good construction, sound material, adequate strength and free from patent defect, and shall be properly maintained.

(2) All such parts and gear shall be thoroughly examined by a competent person at least once in every period of fourteen months and a register shall be kept containing the prescribed particulars of every such examination; and where the examination shows that the lifting machine cannot continue to be used with safety unless certain repairs are carried out immediately or within a specified time, the person making the report of the examination shall within twenty-eight days of the completion of the examination send a copy of the report to the inspector for the district.

(3) All rails on which a travelling crane moves and every track on which the carriage of a transporter or runway moves shall be of proper size and adequate strength and have an even running surface; and any such rails or track shall be properly laid, adequately supported or suspended and properly maintained.

(4) There shall be plainly marked on every lifting machine its safe working load or loads, except that in the case of a jib crane so constructed that the safe working load may be varied by the raising or lowering of the jib, there shall be attached thereto either an automatic indicator of safe working loads or a table indicating the safe working loads at corresponding inclinations of the jib or corresponding radii of the load.

(5) No lifting machine shall, except for the purpose of a test, be loaded beyond the safe working load as marked or indicated under subsection (4) of this section.

(6) No lifting machine shall be taken into use in any factory for the first time in that factory unless it has been tested and all such parts and working gear of the machine as are specified in subsection (1) of this section have been thoroughly examined by a competent person and a certificate of the test and examination specifying the safe working load or loads of the machine and signed by the person making the test and examination has been obtained and is kept available for inspection.

(7) If any person is employed or working on or near the wheel-track of an overhead travelling crane in any place where he would be liable to be struck by the crane, effective measures shall be taken by warning the driver of the crane or otherwise to ensure that the crane does not approach within twenty feet of that place.

(8) If any person is employed or working otherwise than mentioned in subsection (7) of this section but in a place above floor level where he would be liable to be struck by an overhead travelling crane, or by any load carried by such a crane, effective measures shall be taken to warn him of the approach of the crane, unless his work is so connected with or dependent on the movements of the crane as to make a warning unnecessary.

(9) In this section "lifting machine" means a crane, crab, winch, teagle, pulley block, gin wheel, transporter or runway.