Lift and Shift Brighton

Lift and shift in Brighton and across Sussex

We provide lift and shift in Brighton for hotels, healthcare and education buildings, offices and engineering firms across Sussex. The work is moving, lifting, lowering, turning and positioning heavy or awkward items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: transformers and switchgear into switchrooms, chillers, boilers, air handling units and generators in and out of plant rooms and basements, machinery repositioned inside a factory, tanks and process skids, and delicate items such as display cabinets and laboratory equipment.

We cover Brighton, Hove, Portslade, Shoreham-by-Sea, Lewes and Worthing, and out to Burgess Hill, Crawley and Eastbourne. Send the details with a few photos and we can price it the same working day.

What lift and shift covers

Any heavy item that has to go up, down or along a corridor and land on its base without a crane hook over it is lift and shift work. Our kit is gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. On plenty of jobs a crane outside does the first part and our crew carries the item the rest of the way.

What we lift and shift in Brighton

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Switchgear and transformers	Switchrooms in commercial blocks and new schemes	Jacked onto skates, turned at the doorway and lowered onto the plinth
Boilers and air handling units	Basement plant rooms under offices and hotels	Lowered through a hatch on a gantry, then rolled to the base
Machine tools and presses	Engineering units on the city’s estates	Toe jacks under the base, then skates across the shop floor
Standby generators and UPS	Basement data rooms and energy centres	Taken over the raised floor and set on anti-vibration mounts
Tanks and process skids	Factory and workshop process areas	Lifted on jacks, run out on skates and set on new supports
Display cabinets and heavy fittings	Shops and galleries in the centre and The Lanes	Padded skates and hand rollers over covered floors

Tell us the weight, the size and where it has to end up, and we will set out what the job involves. See our lift and shift service page.

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 Brighton

Our Brighton lift and shift work comes from these buildings.

Regency and Victorian terraces

Offices and flats in the tall terraces replace boilers and air handling units in basement or top-floor plant rooms.

Hotels and seafront venues

Seafront hotels and venues book boiler changes for the quieter months, and the new unit goes down to a basement plant room by the service stair or through a hatch. See our HVAC sector page.

Healthcare and education buildings

Clinics and teaching buildings take in new laboratory equipment and plant room kit along corridors and goods lifts shared with the people using the building. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.

Industrial estates and the harbour

Engineering firms at Portslade, Hollingbury and beside Shoreham Harbour shift machine tools, presses and process skids to make room for new lines. See our industrial and maritime sector pages.

New schemes and fit-outs

Residential and commercial developments need switchgear and plant placed once the building is closed in and the only way in is a door. See our construction sector page.

Data rooms and substations

Data rooms need UPS and generators taken across raised floors past live racks, and a new switchboard often stands beside the old one until the changeover. See our power and renewables and data centre infrastructure pages.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Brighton

Points we check on most Brighton jobs:

Terraces with only a front door. The tall Regency and Victorian terraces rarely have side or rear access, and many are listed. Plant goes in at the front door or down the area steps, and we agree with the owner how the fabric is protected.
What the route crosses. An older ground floor can span a cellar, and a newer block may have a car park beneath. We confirm what it will carry and spread the load where needed.
Height and turning space. We measure clearance with the item on its equipment, and every doorway, landing and stair turn on the way.
People still in the building. Hotels and clinics carry on around us, so we agree which corridors and lifts we can use, and when.
Space at the kerb. In the centre the lorry needs a parking bay suspension beside the door. We can apply to Brighton and Hove City Council for that or a road closure, or to East or West Sussex County Council outside the city.

Getting it where it needs to go

A Brighton lift and shift can take new plant into a building or bring a worn-out boiler up to the pavement, and the swap of old for new can happen in a single visit. Some never go indoors, like a transformer moved across a yard onto its plinth.

Inside, expect steep terrace staircases, basement areas below the pavement, small hotel goods lifts, mezzanines at Hollingbury, split levels where a building steps down the hill, raised floors and narrow doors. Gantries, jacks, rollers and skates get past them, with a crane where it helps. When nothing fits, we strip back a frame or take the item through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We work in every BN postcode and the Sussex towns around it:

The city: the centre, The Lanes, Kemptown, Preston Park, Hollingbury, Hove and Portslade
Coastal towns: Shoreham-by-Sea, Lancing, Worthing, Peacehaven, Newhaven and Seaford
Inland: Lewes, Steyning, Hassocks, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath
Wider area: Crawley, Horsham, Littlehampton and Eastbourne

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Brighton firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

The whole coast covered. A job in Worthing or Eastbourne is planned and run the same way as one in central Brighton.
Street lift and indoor move together. When a crane sets the item at the front door, the same team takes it through the building under one contract.
Paperwork ready for your building manager. The method statement and lift plan reach you early enough for the landlord or hotel management to sign them off.
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

Brighton clients often need more than the move itself, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Tell us the weight and size, where the item stands now and where it is going, with photos of the way between.
We price it the same working day from a desktop survey, or visit first when the route is tight or the floor unknown.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loading.
Our crew lifts the item, moves it along the agreed route and positions it.
It is set down on its base, levelled and handed over.

Common questions

Can you get plant into the basement of a terraced building?

Yes, in most cases. We look at the area steps, any pavement vault and the turn at the foot of the stairs, then decide whether the unit goes down whole on a gantry or in sections.

Can you move laboratory equipment between floors of a teaching building?

Yes. We check the goods lift’s capacity and car size first. If the item fits, it rides the lift on skates. If it does not, it goes up the stair on a gantry or comes in through a window by crane.

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 Brighton

Phone: 01273 920 125
Email: brighton@synergy-lifting.co.uk

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

We also provide lift and shift in Portsmouth, London, Southampton and Reading. See all the lift and shift locations.