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Nobody marshalling, nothing written down. Then HSE, an auditor or your insurer asks who is trained, and you need the answer on the day. PHW assesses your people on your own yard and your own machines.
The Barcode Warehouse Ltd was fined £500,000 after a worker was fatally trapped under an overturned forklift. The film shows what HSE, an auditor or your insurer will ask, and how assessment on your own site gives you the answer on the day.
Sound on. Captions are built in. The film has its own page, with the full text: goods in and goods out film.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
Any site with lorries in and out and a forklift.
This is for the owner or yard manager of a firm that takes deliveries and sends goods out by lorry: engineering subcontractors, steel stockholders, merchants, bakeries, laundries and quarries. If a lorry reverses onto your bay and someone on a forklift unloads it, this page is about your site.
It also fits the small firms around a big industrial estate that supply major manufacturers: machining, fabrication, powder coating, shot blasting, painting and subassembly, with deliveries in and out all day. Loads arrive in stillages, on pallets, in cages or loose, and are offloaded by forklift and reloaded when the work is done.
What goes wrong on a yard like yours.
Lorries reversing onto a bay and forklifts working the same ground as people on foot is the core risk. The usual gap in a small firm is that anybody jumps on the forklift and anybody reverses a lorry off the road onto the bay, with no marshalling and no reversing signals in place.
Offloading and reloading by forklift, and loads handled in stillages, pallets, cages or loose, need an assessed, authorised operator and a written loading bay procedure, not whoever is free at the time.
Overhead gantry cranes and chain hoists used to move heavy items, for example through shot blasting and painting, need a trained slinger and signaller and a competent crane operator behind every lift.
On many small yards none of it is written down: no traffic management plan, no safe system of work for the yard, and no record of who is authorised on the forklift or the crane.
The regulations behind a yard and a forklift.
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regulation 17, require every workplace to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely. Where vehicles and people use the same route, there must be enough separation between them.
PUWER 1998 regulation 9 requires the employer to make sure everyone who uses work equipment has had adequate training for health and safety, and the same for anyone who supervises or manages its use. That covers the forklift and the reach truck.
Where an overhead crane or chain hoist lifts, LOLER 1998 and its Approved Code of Practice L113 apply. Regulation 8 requires every lifting operation to be planned by a competent person and supervised, and regulation 9 requires thorough examination of the lifting equipment.
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 cover loading and unloading by hand.
The employer still decides who is authorised on each machine. PHW's certificates, records and packs are the evidence behind that decision.
The machines, packs and systems that fit a yard with lorries in and out.
Your forklift drivers assessed on your own truck, diesel, gas or electric, up to 4,500 kg.
View →Who has had what and when, skills gaps, refresher reminders and a forward plan you can show HSE.
View →Traffic management plan, safe system of work and forklift authorisation, written for your yard.
View →The evidence trail a site, a customer's auditor or an insurer can check.
How verification works → · Take the one-minute goods in and goods out check →
Tell us which machines and packs you need and how many people, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
Get a quoteHSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£170,000 + £7,999 costs · 2026-05-12
A fitter's hand was trapped under a three-tonne machine when forklift forks unexpectedly dropped, resulting in two amputated fingers.
Read the case →£500,000 + £7,040 costs · 2023-11-08
A forklift struck a kerbstone and overturned, trapping and killing a driver who was not wearing a seatbelt.
Read the case →£230,000 + £111,000 costs · 2026-09-14
An improperly planned and supervised forklift unloading operation dropped a 1.2-tonne crate onto a delivery worker from another company, causing life-changing injuries.
Read the case →