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Equality Act 2010 · Part M · BS EN 81-41

Accessibility lift service & specialist installation — UK-wide.

Independent platform and passenger lift specialists for buildings with a disabled-access duty. We design, install, service, modernise and LOLER-inspect wheelchair-accessible platform lifts and passenger-cabin lifts for private dwellings, schools, surgeries, council buildings, care homes and listed conversions — built and maintained to BS EN 81-41 and the wider Equality Act framework.

Replaces our older House Lifts for Disabled guide — keyword cluster preserved, framework rewritten for the UK statutory regime (DDA-era inheritance, Building Regs Part M, Disabled Facilities Grant pathway).

Move into a survey

Platform lifts LOLER inspection DDA modernisation
020 3435 6838 · 24/7
Two lift families for one access duty

Platform lift or passenger lift?
The accessibility brief decides — not the brand.

The legacy "house lift for disabled" market collapsed three things — stairlifts, platform lifts and home elevators — into one shopping category. The real specification problem is sharper: a platform lift under BS EN 81-41 is the right answer for low-rise, wheelchair-led access in homes, schools, surgeries and listed conversions. A passenger lift under BS EN 81-20 with BS EN 81-70 accessibility provisions takes over for multi-storey public buildings, hotels, healthcare estates and mixed-use schemes. We design, install and service both, and we are not tied to either product family.

Platform lift · BS EN 81-41

Wheelchair-platform lifts & through-floor home lifts

The workhorse of UK accessibility design. Screw-and-nut drive, single-phase plug-in, open or enclosed cabin, travel up to 13 metres at 0.15 m/s. Suits private homes funded by Disabled Facilities Grants, community halls, primary schools, dental surgeries, care-home owner accommodation and listed-building conversions where the structural envelope rules out a deep pit and overhead motor room. Brands we install and service: Aritco PublicLift Access, Gartec, Phoenix Modular.

  • BS EN 81-41 — platform lifts for impaired-mobility persons
  • Travel up to 13 m · 0.15 m/s · open or enclosed cabin
  • 230 V single-phase plug-in installs · low pit / low headroom
  • Wheelchair-accessible cabin & call-and-return controls
Platform lift service across the UK
Passenger lift · BS EN 81-20 + 81-70

Conventional passenger lifts with accessibility provisions

The right specification once you cross roughly four storeys, expect lift-as-primary circulation, or need cabin speeds above 0.15 m/s. Conventional traction or MRL cabs are designed under BS EN 81-20 with the accessibility provisions of BS EN 81-70 layered on top — wheelchair-sized cabs, mirror-and-handrail provision, braille floor markings, audible floor indication, accessible call stations. We routinely modernise DDA-era passenger lifts in surgeries, hospitals, schools and council buildings up to current Equality Act expectations. Common brands on this side: Stannah, Otis, Kone, Schindler.

  • BS EN 81-20 + BS EN 81-70 — passenger lifts with accessibility provisions
  • Multi-storey public buildings, hotels, healthcare, mixed-use schemes
  • Conventional cab · MRL traction or hydraulic · braille floor markings
  • DDA-era retrofits routinely modernised to current Equality Act standard
Passenger lift service across the UK

Related coverage

Residential sector → DDA / Equality Act modernisation → LOLER inspection → Platform lifts → Passenger lifts → Every brand we service →
In the building

What does a compliant accessibility lift look like at the landing?

A wheelchair-accessible platform lift built to BS EN 81-41 is purpose-designed for the access duty — safety-glass walls inside a powder-coated steel frame, a single discreet hall lantern above the door, and landing furniture placed for a wheelchair user, not an able-bodied passer-by. The visual brief is calm, civic, evidently designed.

Care homes, surgeries, council buildings, schools — same standard, same engineering team. We design the install around the brief Part M sets, not the marketing brochure the OEM ships with.

Wheelchair-accessible platform lift in glass and painted steel inside the bright foyer of a UK care home, doors closed at the lower landing with a single hall lantern above.
The regulatory frame, on one panel

Equality Act-grade access isn't a brochure feature. It's a statutory contract.

The four numbers below are the ones a competent surveyor checks first — Part M, the LOLER cycle, the Equality Act anchor and BS EN 81-41. Every accessibility lift we install or take over is benchmarked against this set on day one.

Building regs Part M

Approved Document M sets the access floor for new and altered buildings. Our installs and modernisations are surveyed against it from the first visit.

LOLER cycle 6 months

Every accessibility lift carrying people in a workplace context gets a LOLER 1998 thorough examination every 6 months. We carry the work out under SafeContractor approval (CN8516).

Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 inherits the DDA duties — reasonable adjustments include vertical access. Our reports document compliance evidence for occupiers and duty-holders.

Platform standard BS EN 81-41

The European standard specifically for platform lifts serving persons with impaired mobility. Every accessibility platform we touch is benchmarked against it.

LOLER thorough examination → Compliance modernisation → Aritco PublicLift Access → Gartec accessibility range → Stannah → Phoenix Modular →
Heritage retrofits · BS 8300 · Equality Act

Accessibility lifts in heritage & Grade II listed buildings.

Wheelchair platform lifts in a Grade II listed building are specified against BS 8300-1:2018 (external approach) and BS 8300-2:2018 (internal environment), with the Equality Act 2010 reasonable-adjustment duty applying to the duty-holder even where heritage fabric constrains the works. Historic England guidance and a listed-building consent application sit alongside the Part M / BS EN 81-41 route.

The practical heritage brief is reversibility and minimal fabric intervention: shallow-pit or pitless platform lifts, low-headroom drives, single-phase plug-in supplies that avoid three-phase incoming-supply works, and sympathetic cab finishes selected from RAL Classic colours (RAL 7016 anthracite, RAL 9005 jet black, RAL 1019 grey beige) or veneered to match existing joinery. Local Planning Authority conservation officers review the application; consent is granted where the proposal demonstrably preserves the special architectural or historic interest of the listed structure.

For listed-building consent submissions we provide the BS EN 81-41 compliance statement, BS 8300-2 design-stage check, manufacturer fabric-impact drawings and a written reversibility note for the conservation officer's pack. See our compliance standards guide and compliance modernisation service for the supporting documentation we provide as standard.

Low-mounted brushed-stainless accessibility landing panel with two high-contrast round call buttons, tactile braille strips and a warm-amber LED floor indicator showing G.

Heritage retrofit · specification anchors

Reversible installation
Shallow-pit or pitless platform lifts on bolted self-supporting structures. No load applied to original fabric; removable without permanent damage to floor plates, panelling or joists — the test conservation officers apply.
Low-noise drive
Screw-and-nut drives at 0.15 m/s run well under the 50 dB(A) target that occupied heritage spaces (churches, country houses, museums, civic chambers) typically require. No motor-room overhead works needed.
Low-profile finishes
Half-height glazed cab, full-glazed shaft or panelled cab in RAL Classic colours and veneers. Sympathetic to listed interiors; conservation-officer-approvable as a design-led intervention rather than a service insertion.
Single-phase plug-in
230 V supply avoids three-phase upgrade works through historic walls. Standard for BS EN 81-41 platform lifts in heritage retrofits.
Typical heritage-suited models
Cibes Air (Swedish design-led shaft, fully-glazed option), Kalea (architect-led aesthetics, RAL Classic palette), Vimec (Italian compact platforms, shallow-pit variants).
Planning & consent
Listed-building consent (LBC) sought through the Local Planning Authority, Historic England consulted on Grade I and Grade II* assets. Planning permission additionally required where external works alter the principal elevation. We provide the technical pack.
Accessibility-lift questions we answer at survey

What duty-holders ask before specifying a lift.

What is the difference between a platform lift and a passenger lift for an accessibility build?
A platform lift is a low-rise, low-speed lift designed under BS EN 81-41 specifically for persons with impaired mobility — the cabin (or open platform) travels at up to 0.15 m/s with constant-pressure or call-and-return controls and runs from a 230 V single-phase supply. A passenger lift is a conventional cabin lift designed under BS EN 81-20 with the accessibility provisions of BS EN 81-70 layered on top. Platform lifts dominate domestic accessibility retrofits, school and community-hall installs, and low-rise public buildings. Passenger lifts take over the moment you cross roughly four storeys, need >0.15 m/s travel speed, or expect lift-as-primary circulation rather than lift-as-accessibility-route. We specify both — and we are not tied to one product family, so the survey returns whichever is actually right for the building.
Does the Equality Act 2010 require a lift in my building?
The Equality Act 2010 inherits the duties of the Disability Discrimination Act and obliges service providers, employers, schools, healthcare bodies and landlords to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people can access goods, services and employment. A lift is one of the standard reasonable adjustments where a building has multiple storeys. The Act does not list a hard threshold; it asks whether the adjustment is reasonable in scale and cost relative to the duty-holder's resources. Approved Document M of the Building Regulations is the sister instrument and sets a more prescriptive floor for new build and material alterations. In practice, every multi-storey public-facing building we survey ends up with a Part M / Equality Act access strategy in which a lift sits at the centre.
Which accessibility-lift brands do you service?
On the platform-lift side we service the full Aritco range (including the Aritco 9000 PublicLift Access), the Gartec UK line, Stannah platform lifts, Phoenix Modular platform lifts, Cibes, Dalby, Kalea, Motala, Nami, NTD, Pollock and Vimec. On the passenger-lift side we service every major manufacturer that ships in the UK — Otis, Kone, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp, Orona, Mitsubishi and Stannah passenger units. If your accessibility lift is from a manufacturer we have not named, call us; the engineering team has worked on most of the legacy product lines too. See the full list on our brands page.
Can a Disabled Facilities Grant cover a platform lift in a private home?
Yes — the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG), administered by local councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and through equivalent schemes in Scotland, can fund home adaptations including through-floor platform lifts and stairlifts where they are necessary to give a disabled occupant safe and independent access. The grant is means-tested and capped, and the route to approval runs through an occupational therapist assessment. We do not handle the grant application itself, but we routinely supply the lift specification, written quotation, BS EN 81-41 compliance statement and contractor competence evidence that the council assessor needs in their pack.
How fast can you get an engineer to a broken-down accessibility lift?
For 24/7 emergency call-outs in London and the surrounding M25, same-day dispatch — usually within hours. Outside the M25 the response is scheduled by region, but accessibility-critical breakdowns (a wheelchair user stranded between floors, a school lift out of action mid-term, a care-home resident relying on the unit for daily access) jump every queue. Triage starts on the call: ring 020 3435 6838 and you reach an engineer, not a call-centre.
We have an old DDA-era platform lift. Should we modernise or replace?
The honest answer comes out of a survey, not a quote sheet. Many platform lifts from the late-DDA / early Equality Act era are mechanically sound — screw-and-nut drives, in particular, are designed for very long service lives — but the control board, door interlocks, photocells and emergency-lowering circuit are usually the components that age out. In that case a controls modernisation is far cheaper than a full replacement and brings the lift up to current BS EN 81-41 and Equality Act expectations. We will only recommend a full replacement when the structural frame is past economic repair or the OEM has stopped supplying critical parts that we cannot source as original-equivalents. See our compliance modernisation service for the typical scope.
Do you handle the LOLER thorough examination for accessibility lifts?
Yes. LOLER 1998 applies to every lift carrying people in a workplace context, including accessibility platform lifts in schools, surgeries, council buildings, hotels, care homes and many residential blocks where the lift serves common parts. The thorough examination is every 6 months for lifts carrying people and every 12 months for goods-only units. We carry out the examination under our SafeContractor approval (member CN8516) and produce a SaFed-aligned written report. We also flag any item that would constitute an Equality Act access-failure risk separately so the duty-holder has a clean trail of evidence.
Is independent service legal on an accessibility lift, or do I have to stay with the OEM?
Independent service is legal on every accessibility lift in the UK — the LOLER duty is on the duty-holder to keep the lift safe and inspected, not on a particular brand of engineer. Most accessibility-lift OEMs (Aritco / Gartec, Cibes, Stannah, Phoenix and the rest) offer their own service contracts, but the regulatory framework expressly allows competent independent contractors to take that work over. BASE is managed by a multi-discipline team and Technical Director with approaching four decades of platform and passenger lift experience, and we routinely take over Gartec, Aritco, Stannah and Cibes accessibility contracts from the OEM and from other independents.
Move the access problem to a quotation

Tell us about the building. We'll specify the right accessibility lift.

Whether it's a Disabled Facilities Grant install in a private home, a Part M-compliant platform lift in a primary school, or a DDA-era passenger lift in a council building due an Equality Act modernisation — start with a survey. A senior platform or passenger lift engineer reviews every brief. No call-centre triage, no boilerplate quotes.

Book an accessibility survey Call 020 3435 6838 (24/7)

Or email enquiries@baselifts.co.uk · serving London & the M25, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and the rest of the UK