Do Cherry Pickers Require LOLER Inspection?

Yes — cherry pickers need a 6-monthly LOLER thorough examination because they lift persons. Intervals, duty-holder duties, and what is checked.

Do cherry pickers require LOLER inspection?

Yes. A cherry picker is lifting equipment used to lift persons, and therefore falls within the scope of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER). Like other equipment used to lift personnel, it must be thoroughly examined by a competent person at least every six months, or otherwise in accordance with a Written Scheme of Examination drawn up by a competent person, which may specify a different interval for particular equipment in particular conditions.

This isn’t a discretionary inspection. LOLER Regulation 9 places a statutory duty on the employer or person who has control of the equipment to ensure the thorough examination is carried out and documented by a competent person. HSE guidance in L113 adds that the competent person should be sufficiently independent and impartial, and should not normally be the same person who performs routine maintenance on the equipment, to avoid anyone examining their own work.

Why every 6 months?

LOLER sets two standard intervals for thorough examination:

• 12 months for lifting equipment used to lift loads only
• 6 months for lifting equipment used to lift persons, and for all lifting accessories

A cherry picker exists specifically to elevate a worker into position for a task at height. That puts it in the 6-month category, regardless of the size of the unit, the height of the platform, or how light-duty its use may appear. A trailer-mounted cherry picker on weekly residential work is on the same statutory baseline as a 70-metre truck-mounted boom on a construction site, unless the Written Scheme of Examination specifies otherwise.

What counts as a “cherry picker”?

“Cherry picker” is a colloquial term covering a family of Mobile Elevating Work Platforms (MEWPs) that share a common feature: a personnel-carrying platform supported by an articulated or telescopic boom. The 6-monthly LOLER examination applies to all of them:

• Articulated boom lifts: multi-jointed booms used for working over obstacles
• Telescopic boom lifts: straight-extending booms used for long horizontal or vertical reach
• Self-propelled boom lifts: battery, diesel, or rough-terrain units that drive between work positions
• Truck-mounted platforms: cherry pickers fixed to vehicle chassis for highway and utility work
• Trailer-mounted platforms: towable units typically used by smaller contractors
• Spider lifts: tracked compact boom lifts used for indoor and confined-access work
• Vehicle-mounted utility platforms: used by power, telecommunications, and street-lighting teams

Some related access equipment (scissor lifts, mast climbers, scaffold hoists) also carries the 6-monthly LOLER default on the same principle, because they lift persons; an examination scheme can set different intervals.

Who is the “duty holder”?

The legal responsibility for LOLER compliance falls on the person who has control of the lifting equipment. In practice the exact allocation depends on the ownership and hire arrangement:

• For equipment owned and used by the same business, the employer is the duty holder.
• For hired equipment, the hire company must not let the machine leave without evidence of its last thorough examination (LOLER regulation 9(4)). During the hire, the user has the duty to make sure periodic examinations are done. HSE’s L113 guidance (paragraph 45) says an arrangement for the hire company to carry them out does not alter that duty.
• Where there’s any doubt, the hire contract terms and any service agreement should be checked.

If a cherry picker is involved in an incident and the thorough examination is out of date or missing, the duty holder is exposed to HSE enforcement action and, depending on policy terms, potential difficulties with liability insurance, and in serious cases, prosecution under HSWA or LOLER.

What does the examination cover?

A LOLER thorough examination of a cherry picker is a structured safety inspection, not a service, not maintenance, and not a daily walkaround. The competent person verifies items including:

• Boom and structural condition: welds, joints, telescoping sections, articulation pivots
• Hydraulic system integrity: cylinders, hoses, pressure lines, fluid condition
• Platform structure: guardrails, toe-boards, gate latches, anti-entrapment systems
• Emergency descent: manual or auxiliary system operation under simulated power loss
• Controls and interlocks: platform and ground controls, dead-man switches, tilt sensors
• Outriggers and stability: pad condition, automatic level/extension interlocks
• Wire ropes (on certain telescopic units): for broken strands, corrosion, terminations
• Safe Working Load (SWL) marking: legibility and accuracy of capacity plates

The examination produces a written report covering all observations, defects and observations alike, that the duty holder must retain. Where a defect is identified as posing existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, LOLER Regulation 10 requires the competent person to notify the duty holder immediately and the equipment must be withdrawn from service until rectified.

Daily pre-use checks are not a LOLER thorough examination

A common misconception is that the operator’s daily pre-use check satisfies LOLER. It doesn’t. Pre-use checks sit under PUWER 1998 and the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and are the operator’s responsibility before each shift. The LOLER thorough examination is a separate statutory inspection by a competent person at the prescribed interval, with a formal written report.

Both apply in parallel. Daily checks don’t replace 6-monthly thorough examinations, and 6-monthly thorough examinations don’t replace daily checks.

Inspection by a competent person and the independence question

LOLER requires the thorough examination to be carried out by a competent person. HSE guidance in L113 adds that the competent person should be sufficiently independent and impartial, and should not normally be the same person who performs routine maintenance on the equipment. A maintenance contractor with a stake in declaring the equipment safe is exactly the conflict that guidance is aimed at.

For hire fleets this typically means using a separate inspection provider rather than relying on the same company that maintains the equipment. For owned equipment, duty holders usually engage an independent Engineer Surveyor for the same reason.

Summary

Excel Inspection Solutions provides independent LOLER thorough examinations on cherry pickers, scissor lifts, boom lifts, and access equipment across Kent, London, Essex, and the wider South East through a network of qualified Engineer Surveyors.