Crane Interest Group.

The Crane Interest Group was the original interest group and the largest of all the SIGs, commanding respect both in the UK and in Europe. Members of CIG were heavily involved in the writing of the British Standard 7121 series – Safe Use of Cranes and have also been continually involved in all of the many revisions which have subsequently taken place.

CIG further helped produce CPA Contract Lifting Services Conditions to be used both for Contract Lifts and machine moving operations and helped produce the Supplementary Conditions for crane hire to use in conjunction with the CPA Model Conditions for the Hiring of Plant.

The Crane Interest Group through the CPA are members of ESTA, the leading European association for the abnormal road transport and mobile crane rental industry and represents national trade associations whose members are mobile crane and access platform, rental and abnormal road transport companies. ESTA are member of the International Crane Stakeholders Assembly [ICSA] from across many countries including Australia, Japan, North America and Canada.

ETSA is further represented on various crane and heavy transport working groups inc. FEM and CEN e.g. EN13000. ESTA also has a library of publications and can be accessed at: https://estaeurope.eu/library/.

More information on ESTA can be found at https://estaeurope.eu/

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the aviation regulator, has introduced a new notification system to help the construction industry in notifying airspace users of cranes above a specified height. Their Airspace Co-ordination Obstacle Management Service (ACOMS) portal will help those planning flights and drone activity to assess any risks and plan appropriately. In essence, notification is required if a crane is:

• to be used within 6 Km of the aerodrome/airfield and its height exceeds 10 metres Above Ground Level (AGL) or that of surrounding structures or trees, if higher, or;
• is to be operated at or above a height of 100 metres AGL regardless of location or height of surrounding structures.

The CAA recommends using ACOMS at least eight weeks before the erection of the crane, however, as the CAA recognises that there are times when very little notice is given to the crane user, additional notification timescales have been created as follows:

PLANNED LONG-TERM PROJECTS: Notification to be sent to the CAA at least eight weeks (40 working days) before the erection of the crane. The CAA will then identify parties that may be affected by the crane and inform the crane user and affected parties about the next steps.

AD-HOC PROJECTS: Notification to be sent to the CAA not later than 5 working days in advance. The CAA will then identify parties that may be affected by the crane and inform the crane user and the affected parties about the next steps.

UNFORESEEN AND URGENT PROJECTS: If there is an unforeseen and urgent requirement to erect a crane within 5 working days from the notification, the crane user is required to contact all aerodromes whose perimeters are within 10 Nautical Miles (NM) (18.5 km) of the crane and submit the notification via ACOMS as soon as possible and advise which aerodrome operators have been contacted and the reason for less than 5 working days’ notice.