River Street, city centre
Cladding and glazing panels craned up the face of a city-centre tower, with the boom working between two buildings.
Miles Platting · M40 8HD
Hiab hire in Manchester
The yard is in Manchester. Seven acres at Miles Platting, hiab lorries that start and finish here every day, and cranes that reach 19.6 metres. Not an office with a Manchester phone number.
Around the city
Jobs we can show you
Every photograph below is a Nortons vehicle on a Manchester job. None of them is a stock picture and none of them appears anywhere else on this site.
A city-centre carriageway
Vehicle stood on the carriageway with the footway coned and kept open. Most city-centre work is decided by where the lorry can legally stand.
Outriggers on a city footway
Legs down on spreader pads outside a city-centre block. Ground bearing pressure is the question nobody asks until it is a problem.
The Christmas markets
Chalets and units into Albert Square and the streets around the Town Hall, and back out again in January. A tight, timed, public-space job.
Circle Square
A modular unit lifted into place on the Circle Square development beside the university campus.
University campus
Deliveries onto a live campus, where the access route matters as much as the lift.
Emirates Old Trafford
Site accommodation stacked and positioned at the cricket ground. Cabins are the load we move more of than any other.
Manchester Airport
Structural steelwork delivered and set down inside the airport boundary, on a site with its own access rules.
A Manchester school
Modular classrooms delivered and craned into a school yard in the holidays, escort vehicle in attendance.
A film unit base
A lighting rig held on the crane for a night shoot. Not everything a hiab lifts is construction.
A city-centre facade
Panels going up the outside of a building already occupied, which is the version that needs planning rather than muscle.
A local delivery run
Steel and timber loaded for a run round the city. Half the Manchester work is this, not the photogenic version.
Stadiums and academies
The venue jobs
Manchester has more large venues per square mile than anywhere outside London, and every one of them has a build programme running behind the fixtures. These photographs were held back until we had permission to publish them.
Old Trafford
Arriving at the ground with the load already on the bed. Stadium work runs to the venue’s clock, not ours, and the slot you are given is the slot you get.
On the crane at the Etihad
The boom out and the load away from the vehicle. Ground conditions around a stadium run from block paving to loose stone, so the outriggers go on pads whether anybody asks or not.
The Etihad concourse
Working on the concourse at the Etihad Stadium, inside the perimeter and around permanent street furniture.
A catering kiosk on the hook
Prefabricated catering kiosks lifted into position around a stadium concourse. They are light, tall and entirely glass on one side, so they go slowly.
The academy site
Loaded and on the approach to the football academy site. Deliveries there go to a fixed gate at a fixed time and the vehicle waits its turn like everybody else.
Timber onto the academy site
Timber and materials run in on the flatbed and craned off. From where the lorry stands you often cannot see the ground the load is going onto, which is what the banksman is for.
The cricket ground
Lifting at the cricket ground on the other side of the city. Sports venues all have the same shape of problem: a fixed perimeter, a live surface nobody may drive on, and a date that cannot move.
The Anfield site setup · More stadium work, 2023 · The full portfolio
The short answer
A Manchester haulier, not a haulier with a Manchester page
Nortons Hiab Services has operated from Norton Street, Miles Platting since 2007. Seven acres of secure, CCTV-monitored yard, our lorries and our trailers, all our own, all kept here.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Search for a crane lorry in Manchester and most of what comes back is a national booking desk, a broker, or a company two hundred miles away with a page about Manchester. When the job runs late or the access turns out to be worse than the photograph showed, none of them has a spare vehicle two miles away.
We do. The vehicle that comes to your job left Miles Platting that morning and is going back there that night, and the person who answers the phone can see the yard.
7Acres at Miles Platting
Our ownFleet, not hired in
19.6mMaximum crane outreach
2007Established here
Greater Manchester
Where a Manchester booking actually goes
Ten boroughs, one yard. These are the places a vehicle reaches inside the working day without any of the cost of a long empty run.
- Manchester city centre
- Salford
- Trafford
- Stockport
- Tameside
- Oldham
- Rochdale
- Bury
- Bolton
- Wigan
- Ashton-under-Lyne
- Altrincham
- Sale
- Eccles
- Middleton
- Denton
- Droylsden
- Prestwich
- Swinton
- Urmston
- Cheadle
- Wythenshawe
Beyond that the vehicles run nationally, and the price stops being about distance and starts being about the crane and the access. Across the North West · The rest of the country
What turns up
The vehicle, and why it is the right one
For a tight city-centre lift — an 8-wheel rear-steer rigid at 32 tonnes with an 858 or 855 crane. It gets down streets an artic cannot, and the 858 still lifts over 8 tonnes and reaches 19.6 metres.
For a long or heavy load — a 44-tonne artic with a 658 or 622 crane and an extendable trailer, or one of the wagon and drag lorries when the load has to come off in two places.
For a small delivery — the 7.5-tonne flatbed. Not everything needs a 32-tonne vehicle outside it, and sending one when it is not needed is how a quote gets silly.
- Every crane figure on this site comes off the manufacturer’s data sheet, and the sheets are published in full
- Drivers / operators ALLMI trained and CPCS qualified — most of the team, and it is the lorry loader qualification, not just plant in general
- Cranes worked by remote control, so the driver / operator stands where he can see the load
- Several driver / operators hold Rail Track PTS; we are LINK Up members
- Our own wide load exemption notices and our own escort vehicles
- Euro VI on the 32 and 44 tonne wagons — the standard clean air zones are written around
Before you book
Four things that decide a Manchester job
Where the lorry stands
Not where the load is going — where the vehicle can legally and safely sit while it lifts. In the city centre this is usually the whole job.
What it reaches over
A wall, a roof, a live carriageway or a neighbour’s garden. Radius is what sets the crane, and capacity falls away fast as the boom goes out.
What the ground takes
Outrigger pads spread the load; the ground has to accept it. Basements, service covers and fresh tarmac all change the answer.
Who else needs telling
Council, building management, a permit or a closure. We will tell you which applies rather than find out on the day.
Telling us where the lorry would have to stand answers most of it. Send the details with your enquiry
Also in Manchester
The rest of what runs out of Miles Platting
Common questions
Manchester hiab hire, answered
Where in Manchester are you based?
Norton Street, off Hulme Hall Lane, Miles Platting, M40 8HD. Seven acres, CCTV monitored, about two miles from Manchester city centre and five minutes from the M60 at Ashton. It is our own yard, not a serviced address, and every vehicle we run starts and finishes its day there.
How quickly can you get to a job in Manchester?
Faster than anyone running in from another city. Because the vehicles are already here, a Manchester job does not carry the dead running that a job in Birmingham or Leeds does. For anything urgent, email is quicker than a form — tell us the postcode and what has to be lifted and we will tell you what we have free.
Can you work in Manchester city centre?
Regularly. Rooftop strip-outs on Deansgate, cladding panels on the towers around River Street, the Christmas markets outside the Town Hall, Circle Square, the university campus. City centre work usually turns on three things: where the vehicle can legally stand, how far the crane has to reach, and what the ground under the outriggers will take. Tell us the street and we will tell you before anyone turns up.
Do I need a permit or a road closure?
Sometimes. If the vehicle has to stand on the carriageway or the footway, or if the boom will swing over the public highway, the city council will normally want notice and may want a permit or a temporary closure. We will tell you which applies from the photograph and the postcode, and we work to whatever the council issues. What we will not do is turn up and hope.
Is your fleet clean air zone compliant?
Yes. The 32-tonne and 44-tonne wagons we run are Euro VI, so Greater Manchester and every other UK clean air zone is a non-issue. We invest in new lorries continually, specifically so that our customers never get a charge passed on.
Do you only work in Manchester?
No. Manchester is where the yard is, not where the work stops. We run across England, Scotland and Wales from this one site, with UK-wide wide load exemption notices and our own escort vehicles.
What does a Manchester hiab job cost?
It depends on the crane, the radius, the access and how long the vehicle is on site — not on a rate card. We would rather quote your actual job than publish a figure that turns out to be wrong for it.
Do you do Manchester hiab transport as well as lifting?
Yes, and most jobs are both. Manchester hiab transport means the lorry carries your load across the city and then lifts it into position at the other end, rather than dropping it at the kerb for somebody else to move. That is the whole point of a hiab: one vehicle, one driver / operator, no second machine to book.
Where can I hire crane trucks in Manchester?
Here. If you are looking for crane trucks Manchester side, ours are kept at our own yard at Miles Platting, M40, a few minutes from the city centre and straight onto the M60. They are Euro VI, so the Greater Manchester clean air zone costs you nothing on the quote.
Are you actually based in Manchester?
Yes. Search hiab Manchester and you will get plenty of results; of the haulage companies Manchester throws up, we are one of the few whose yard is genuinely in the city: Norton Street, off Hulme Hall Lane, Miles Platting. Not an accommodation address and not a page written for a town we visit occasionally. The vehicles are parked here overnight, which is why a Manchester booking can often be with you the same morning.
A Manchester job, from a Manchester yard
Tell us what needs lifting and where it has to go. You will get a straight answer about which vehicle fits.
