Working safely at height with a crane basket
Working at height is one of the most tightly regulated areas of UK health and safety law, and this is especially true when the work is carried out from a basket fitted to a crane. Unlike some other European countries, the UK does not set a fixed height threshold for these duties: the Work at Height Regulations 2005 (WAHR) apply wherever a fall could cause personal injury, whatever the distance involved.
This article gives a practical overview of the main points to know when a crane basket is involved, without going into the level of detail only a competent person or safety adviser would need.
What counts as working at height
Under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, work at height is any work in a place where, if precautions were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury, with no minimum height set in law. This differs from several other European jurisdictions that apply a fixed threshold (commonly 2 metres), and it’s a common point of confusion even among experienced operators.
The crane basket: a category of its own
A crane is designed to lift loads, not people. Fitting a basket to carry an operator to height is therefore only permitted where specific conditions are met, a principle set out in the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) and its Approved Code of Practice for lifting people.
In practice, there are two distinct configurations, and the difference matters for certification, training and responsibilities:
| Aspect | Basket for exceptional lifting | Basket certified as MEWP |
|---|---|---|
| Who controls movement | The crane operator, from the ground or cab | The operator, directly from the basket |
| People involved | Two: crane operator plus person in the basket | One: the same person rides and operates the controls |
| Applicable standard | BS EN 14502-1 | BS EN 280-2 |
| Regulatory basis | LOLER Regulation 5 + Approved Code of Practice, genuinely exceptional circumstances only | Ordinary MEWP use, outside the exceptional-circumstances regime |
Improvising (rigging up an unapproved platform to a crane hook) is not just dangerous, it’s a clear breach of LOLER, and in the event of an accident it exposes the business and whoever authorised the work to serious liability.
For a fuller technical breakdown of this distinction, and of the wider family of working-at-height equipment, see our guides Working at height: definition, regulations and training and A Guide to Working at Height Equipment.
Training and certification: who can go up in the basket
The certification required depends on the configuration used.
- basket for exceptional lifting: the crane operator needs a valid crane competency card for the equipment in use (typically an ALLMI Operator Card for lorry loaders) plus fitness for the task; the person in the basket needs specific training for work at height and for the personal protective equipment involved;
- basket certified as MEWP: here there aren’t two separate roles (the same person rides and operates the controls) and this person needs a valid MEWP operator qualification, typically an IPAF PAL card, plus PPE training.
Required PPE for anyone using the basket
Even where the basket already provides collective protection through its guardrails, personal fall-protection equipment remains mandatory. The full set includes:
- a full body harness, with leg and shoulder straps: a simple positioning belt is not acceptable as fall-arrest equipment;
- a short, adjustable restraint lanyard: unlike scaffold work, a basket doesn’t use a long lanyard with an energy absorber designed to arrest a free fall. Instead, a shorter restraint system physically stops the operator leaning out beyond the guardrail during the crane’s movements;
- connectors with automatic closure and a safety lock;
- a helmet suitable for work at height, not a standard site helmet: the difference lies in the chin strap. An industrial helmet’s strap is designed to release under relatively low force (to prevent strangulation risk at ground level), which makes it unsuitable at height, where instead a helmet with a strap that stays firmly in place is needed, so it doesn’t come off during a swing or impact at the worst possible moment.
The basket’s built-in safety features
Whatever the configuration, any basket used to lift people must provide certain baseline features: a solid guardrail with an intermediate rail and toe board, a slip-resistant floor, a positively locking connection to the crane’s jib that prevents accidental release, and a reliable means of communication between the operator in the basket and the person on the ground, radio or intercom, not a mobile phone.
Where the basket is set up as a MEWP, additional electronic devices come into play: an angle sensor, a load-monitoring system that warns and cuts out on overload, an emergency stop button the operator can use directly, and platform-mounted controls that allow the boom to be operated from the working position itself.
Operational limits to respect
Compliant equipment and trained personnel aren’t enough if operating conditions aren’t respected too:
- wind: every crane and basket has a wind limit set by the manufacturer, beyond which the operation must stop. As a general reference, the threshold commonly used for mobile elevating work platforms is around 45 km/h (12.5 m/s, Beaufort force 6), but the figure to follow is always the one in the specific machine’s manual, not a fixed universal number;
- load: the rated capacity must account for everything going up (operators, clothing, harness, tools and materials) and must always be checked against the crane’s residual capacity in the specific working configuration;
- crane set-up: outriggers fully extended, solid ground, ground slope checked before starting. No safety feature on the man basket can compensate for a crane that wasn’t set up correctly in the first place.
Platforms crane baskets: built to work safely
Platforms, a division of the Ormet Group with over 50 years of experience in the lifting sector, designs and manufactures crane man baskets and self-levelling platforms compliant with the applicable regulations, supplied with CE (or UKCA, where applicable) marking, a declaration of conformity and a user manual.
The range covers every operational need: from gravity baskets for occasional work, to controlled-levelling systems for continuous use, through to active levelling for the most demanding contexts. All models are available in steel, aluminium, stainless steel and fibreglass, with options built for stability and safe access.
If you’re weighing up which configuration suits your operation, discover the full range of Platforms crane baskets.