The Lifting Equipment Engineers Association (LEEA) has welcomed last month’s UK government change of policy on UKCA marking.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced the new measures which they believe will make it easier and cheaper for businesses to comply with the UKCA regime. These include:

·       Reduced re-testing costs for UKCA certification, by allowing conformity assessment activities for CE marking completed by 31 December 2022 to be used by manufacturers as the basis for applying a UKCA marking. 

·       Ruling out re-testing of existing imported stock, as these products will be considered already placed on the market In Great Britain (GB). This will prevent the costly, and unnecessary, re-labelling of existing stock for businesses. 

·       Making clear that spare parts that repair, replace or maintain goods already on the GB market can meet the same requirements that were in place at the time the original product or system was placed on the GB market. This will allow products and goods requiring spare parts to continue to be maintained. 

·       Continuing to allow businesses to affix the UKCA marking, and to include importer information for products from EEA countries (and in some cases Switzerland), on an accompanying document or label until 31 December 2025. This will allow businesses to adjust their product design to accommodate marking changes at a convenient and cost-effective time.

LEEA CEO Ross Moloney welcomes the changes and says the association will now consider if they go far enough. “We’re glad to have represented our members’ concerns, raised via our Technical Committee, by putting the case to BEIS and acknowledge the support of those in Whitehall.”

LEEA membership’s previous concerns surrounding the introduction of UKCA marking for small and forged lifting accessories were initially highlighted by the Association’s Technical Committee. These included increased costs, the post-manufacture stamping of millions of products, which will become unintelligible as they are worn away, the damage to the integrity of products which may result in stress weaknesses with potential consequences of injury and fatalities. Marking by an added plate or equivalent also presented difficulties with an additional plate possibly being detrimental to the safe use of the product.