Lift and Shift Stoke

Lift and shift in Stoke-on-Trent and across Staffordshire

We provide lift and shift in Stoke for pottery and tile works, engineering firms, food producers, warehouses on the A50 and A500, and hospital and utility buildings. The work is moving, lifting, lowering, turning and positioning heavy or awkward items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: switchgear into a switchroom, a boiler down to a basement, a generator into a warehouse, or laboratory equipment along a corridor.

We work across Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Fenton and Stoke itself, and out to Newcastle-under-Lyme, Kidsgrove, Trentham, Stone and Leek. Send us the details with a few photos and we can price most jobs the same working day.

What lift and shift covers

Lift and shift is the part of a job a crane hook cannot do: raising an item, turning it, carrying it along a route and setting it down where it belongs. Our crews use gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. On many jobs a crane in the yard lands the item at the door and we bring it the rest of the way.

What we lift and shift in Stoke

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Switchrooms on works sites and at substations	Jacked onto skates, turned inside the room and lowered onto the plinth
Boilers and hot water plant	Basement plant rooms in Hanley offices and public buildings	Taken down the stair or through a hatch on a gantry, then rolled to its base
Glaze tanks and process skids	Ceramics and food works across Staffordshire	Toe jacks under the frame, skated to a new position and set on fresh supports
Glazing and decorating machinery	Production halls in Burslem, Longton and Fenton	Lifted on jacks and walked to a new bay within the same hall
Generators and UPS	Warehouse and office sites off the A500	Skated in from the loading dock and levelled on anti-vibration mounts
Laboratory equipment and display cabinets	Research buildings, colleges and public buildings in the city	Low-headroom gantry and padded rollers, moved at walking pace

Give us the weight, the size and where it needs to end up, and we will say what it takes. Our lift and shift service page explains the process in more detail.

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 Stoke

Our Stoke lift and shift work comes from these buildings.

Ceramics works and kiln halls

Pottery and sanitaryware works set Stoke apart. Switchgear and process plant sit in low, old buildings and the change is fitted into a works shutdown. See our industrial sector page.

Warehouses on the A50 and A500

Distribution sheds along the A500 have generators and switchgear put in or swapped without stopping, each item skated from the dock to a plant area at the back. See our construction sector page.

Engineering units at Etruria Valley and Trentham Lakes

Firms on these estates and at Festival Park reposition machinery to fit a new line or clear a bay, with the rest of the unit working. See our plastics and metals page.

Food production halls

Staffordshire’s food manufacturers have tanks and process skids moved inside hygiene areas during short stops. See our food and beverages page.

Hospital and university plant rooms

Chillers and lab equipment are replaced in buildings that never close, on routes agreed with the estates team. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.

Substations and treatment works

Transformers at substations and water treatment works are changed inside fixed outage windows. See our power and renewables and waste and recycling pages.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Stoke

Points we check on most Stoke jobs:

Made ground outside. Large parts of the city stand on ground left by collieries and marl pits. Before a transformer or tank crosses a yard, we find out what the surface will bear and lay tracks where needed.
Floor loading and what lies below. Skates put heavy weight through small points, and old works floors in the six towns can hide pits and ducts. We check the slab over the whole route.
Headroom along the way. Clearance is measured with the item on the equipment, then at every door and turn.
Production carrying on. Ceramics and food works keep other lines running while we are there, so we fence off a working area and keep forklifts away from it.
Road space. If the lorry or a crane needs part of a road or pavement, we apply to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, or to Staffordshire County Council outside the city, and put the traffic management in place.

Getting it where it needs to go

Some Stoke jobs bring a new item in and others take an old one out, while plenty do both in one visit. Not all of it happens indoors: a transformer skated across a works yard onto a plinth, a tank moved between buildings, a skid lifted onto a raised base, or a unit craned onto a roof and rolled to its frame.

Older works have steps between halls and narrow doors, warehouses have mezzanines, and hospital and college buildings bring ramps, goods lifts, basements and raised floors. Gantries, jacks, rollers and skates get past most of these, with a crane outside where it helps. When nothing fits, a door frame is stripped back and made good afterwards, or the item goes through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every ST postcode and the districts around the city:

Stoke-on-Trent: Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Fenton, Stoke, Trentham and Etruria
West and south: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stone, Eccleshall and Stafford
North and east: Kidsgrove, Biddulph, Leek, Cheadle and the Staffordshire Moorlands
Wider area: Crewe, Congleton, Macclesfield, Uttoxeter, Derby and Telford

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Stoke firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

Crane outside, crew inside. The lift in the yard and the move to the base are planned together and run under one contract.
At home in working factories. Moving plant while a ceramics or engineering works keeps producing is normal for us here.
Old out and new in on one visit. When a unit is replaced, the old one leaves and the new one goes down in the same visit.
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

A Stoke lift and shift can lead into other work, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Tell us what the item weighs and measures, where it sits now and where it has to go, and send photos of the route.
We price it the same working day from a desktop survey, and come out first if the route is tight or the floor is an unknown.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loadings along the route.
Our crew moves the item and positions it.
It is set down, levelled and handed back to you.

Common questions

Can you move a transformer across a yard built on made ground?

Yes, once we know what the ground will take. We check the surface along the route and lay steel tracks or mats so the skates run level. Photos of the yard and plinth are enough for a first answer.

Can you replace plant while the rest of the works keeps running?

Yes. We agree a working area and hours with you and set the new item down as soon as the old one has gone. Nights and weekends are possible.

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 Stoke

Phone: 01782 841 268
Email: stoke@synergy-lifting.co.uk

Tell us the weight and dimensions of the item and send a few photos of the route, and we will get a price back to you.

We also provide lift and shift in Stockport, Wolverhampton, Derby and Warrington. See all the lift and shift locations.