UK Construction and Law

More than sixty prosecutions of mobile crane operators were withdrawn after the test trial collapsed on the first morning

By Staff Writer  |  24 August 2026

A police force alleged that cranes moving inside prohibited hours lost the benefit of the Special Types General Order 2003, which made them overweight under the Construction and Use Regulations 1986. The prosecution offered no evidence, the court recorded acquittals, and more than sixty further cases against other operators and drivers went with it.

The test trial concerned two mobile crane operators and two drivers and was heard at Birmingham Magistrates Court. It was listed for two days. On the first day the prosecution, acting for West Midlands Police, offered no evidence and the court formally recorded the acquittals. More than sixty further pending cases against other mobile crane operators and drivers, all resting on the same legal point, were then withdrawn.

The point of law

The allegation was constructed in two steps. The force said the cranes had travelled during prohibited periods, which in its view meant they were no longer moving lawfully under the road transport exemptions in the Special Types General Order 2003, and that the exemption was therefore of no effect. Take the exemption away and the ordinary Construction and Use Regulations 1986 apply, under which the vehicles are held to much lower permitted weights. On that footing the cranes were overloaded.

The defence did not fight the weights. It attacked the first step, and had argued for a long time that neither the force nor the prosecuting authority had identified any legal basis for the blanket embargo hours being applied. National guidance issued for police forces sets out when a force's power to impose an embargo can be triggered, and the industry position is that it was not triggered here.

Nothing was decided by the court. The prosecution simply offered no evidence, which leaves the underlying question about embargo hours open and the sixty odd defendants free.

Why this reaches beyond crane hire

Mobile cranes and abnormal loads move under a permission structure that most site teams never look at, and the cost of getting it wrong falls straight onto the programme. A crane stopped, seized or prosecuted is a lift not made, and a lift not made on a critical path is a delay claim waiting to be written. Operators have argued for years that embargo periods are read too rigidly by some forces, with alleged breaches measured in seconds or minutes, and that the treatment differs from region to region on the same journey.

Our industry welcomes targeted police enforcement to root out the unsafe and noncompliant but this trial sadly is the tip of the iceberg for many operators who have had to endure the onslaught of disproportionate police enforcement and the attempt to criminalise compliant businesses.

Chris Britton, Chair of the Heavy Transport Association

The association's executive officer, Marcus Gough, made the narrower point that the national guidance defines when the power can be used, and said the force had gone ahead without checking the fundamental tests first.

What a contractor should take from it

Two things are worth doing on any job with heavy lifts booked. The first is to look at what the movement order actually permits, rather than assuming the haulier has it in hand, because the exemption is the thing that carries the weight and it is the thing being attacked. The second is to record the hours. Where a police force alleges movement inside an embargo period, the dispute turns on minutes, and the operator who can produce a timed record of departure, route and arrival is in a materially different position from the one who cannot.

The trial was heard in July and the outcome was reported from the middle of August. The association that took the point up was formed in 1983 and is the only specialist trade body in the United Kingdom for heavy and abnormal load work.