Lift and Shift Wigan

Lift and shift in Wigan and across Greater Manchester

We provide lift and shift in Wigan for food and drink producers, engineering firms, distribution sites and commercial buildings across the borough. The work covers heavy or awkward items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: a transformer walked into a switchroom, a boiler taken down to a basement, a press shifted along a hall, or a process skid set on its frame inside a food plant.

Our crews work across Wigan, Standish, Pemberton, Hindley, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Leigh, and out to Skelmersdale. Send the weight and a few photos and we can price most jobs the same working day.

What lift and shift covers

Lift and shift is everything after the item arrives: raising, lowering, turning and moving it along a route, then setting it down on its base. The kit is gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. Where a crane outside lands the item at the door, our crew carries on under the same plan.

What we lift and shift in Wigan

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Electrical rooms in warehouses and factories	Jacked onto skates and walked through the door to the plinth
Boilers and chillers	Basement plant rooms in Wigan and Leigh town-centre buildings	Lowered through a hatch on a gantry, then rolled to the base
Presses and machine tools	Machining and fabrication shops on the industrial estates	Toe jacked onto skates and moved to a new bay
Standby generators and UPS	Plant compounds and electrical rooms at distribution sheds	Skated across the yard and levelled on mounts
Process tanks and skids	Wet production areas in food factories	Skated in over protected tracks and lowered onto the frame
Laboratory and test equipment	Quality control rooms in food and engineering firms	Low gantry and padded skates, set down gently

Tell us the weight, the footprint and both positions, and we will work out the method. Our lift and shift service page covers the process.

Get In Touch

Please leave a few details and a member of our lift and shift team will be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Where we work in and around Wigan

Our Wigan lift and shift enquiries come from these building types.

Food and drink plants

Tanks, skids and plant room kit cross wash-down floors to the site’s hygiene rules, finishing inside the shutdown. See our food and beverages page.

Units on Martland Park and South Lancashire Industrial Estate

Manufacturing units, warehouses and head offices share these two estates. Jobs range from a switchgear change to a boiler replaced in a plant room behind the offices. See our industrial and HVAC pages.

Distribution sheds along the M6 and M58

Around junction 25 and out towards Skelmersdale, warehouses trade around the clock. Generators and UPS go into electrical rooms between deliveries, with forklift routes kept open. See our construction sector page.

Engineering and component works

Aerospace and automotive parts are made across the borough. Presses and machine tools shift a bay or two along the hall to free space for new equipment, with the rest of the floor still producing. See our aerospace and automotive pages.

Equipment rooms beside the railway

Switchgear and transformers beside the West Coast Main Line go in during a booked possession, with a fixed handback time. See our rail sector page.

Town-centre buildings in Wigan and Leigh

Commercial schemes in both town centres bring rooftop plant and basement boilers, landed by a crane in the street and taken on by our crew. See our construction page.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Wigan

Points we check on most Wigan jobs:

Old mill buildings. Wigan and Leigh still have converted cotton mills in use as workshops and stores. Their timber and cast-iron floors were never built for a modern chiller, so we find out what each floor will carry first.
Floors and drains. Food plants have drainage channels and resin floors across the route, and skates put heavy weight through small points. We check the slab end to end and plate over the channels.
Headroom and the route. We measure clearance with the item on its skates, then every doorway, corner, step and ramp to the base.
Buildings that keep working. Sheds near junction 25 run all night and factories keep producing next door, so the move is timed around shifts.
Loading from the street. Town-centre buildings may have no yard, leaving the lorry in the street. We apply to Wigan Council for the traffic management or road closure that needs.

Getting it where it needs to go

Plant goes into Wigan buildings and comes out of them, and on plenty of jobs the old unit leaves and the new one arrives in one visit. Some work stays outside: a transformer moved across a yard onto a plinth, a tank shifted between buildings, a generator set on a raised base, or a chiller skated along a warehouse roof.

Older buildings bring narrow stairs, small goods lifts, low beams and level changes, sheds bring mezzanines, control rooms have raised floors, and town-centre properties have basements and tight doors. Gantries, jacks, rollers and skates get most items past, with a crane where there is an opening to reach through. When nothing fits, we strip back a door frame and make it good, or take the item through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every WN postcode and the districts around the borough:

Wigan: town centre, Pemberton, Ince, Hindley, Haigh, Swinley and Worsley Mesnes
North and west: Standish, Shevington, Appley Bridge and Skelmersdale
South and east: Ashton-in-Makerfield, Bryn, Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley
Wider area: Bolton, St Helens, Warrington, Chorley and Ormskirk

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Wigan firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

Swaps done in one visit. The old unit comes out and the new one goes in on the same day.
Kit sized for small rooms. Low-headroom gantries and compact skates suit the cramped plant rooms in the borough’s factories.
Crane outside, crew inside, one contract. The crane lift and the move to the base sit under one method statement and one supervisor.
Qualified and accredited. CPCS and NPORS operators, lifts planned to BS 7121, equipment inspected under LOLER and PUWER, SSIP approved, Constructionline Gold Member, certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and members of the Construction Plant-hire Association.

More than lift and shift

Lift and shift jobs in Wigan can lead into other work, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Give us the weight and dimensions, both positions and photos of the route between them.
A price follows from a desktop survey the same working day, with a visit first if the route is tight or a floor unknown.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loadings along the route.
Our crew lifts the item, moves it and positions it.
It is set down on its base, levelled and handed back to you.

Common questions

Will the goods lift in an old mill take the load?

Sometimes, but we check its rating and the floor at each landing before relying on it. If either falls short, the item goes up in sections. Photos are enough for a first answer.

Can you change a transformer at a distribution shed that runs all night?

Yes. The swap is booked into the planned outage and forklift traffic is kept clear of the route. The new transformer is on its plinth, ready for the electrical contractor, before the outage ends.

How much headroom do you need?

Less than most people expect, but it decides the method. What counts is the gap between the top of the item and the lowest obstruction on the route once the item is on the equipment. Where it is tight we use a low-headroom gantry or jacks and lift in smaller steps.

Will you damage our floor?

Not if the route is prepared, and that preparation is part of the price. We spread the load with mats or tracks where the slab needs it, protect finished surfaces, and agree beforehand what gets covered and what gets made good.

Get a quote for lift and shift in Wigan

Phone: 01942 943 023
Email: wigan@synergy-lifting.co.uk

Send us the weight, the dimensions and photos of the route, and we will come back with a price.

We also provide lift and shift in Warrington, Preston, Manchester and Liverpool. See all the lift and shift locations.