Powered gates: what landlords and managing agents are responsible for

If you own, let or manage a site with a powered gate, you carry a continuing legal duty for its safety. It does not transfer to the installer once the gate is in. In practice that means holding a current risk assessment, maintaining the gate and its safety devices, keeping records, and acting quickly when a contractor reports a fault.

This article is about the duty holder’s side. If you want the technical standard behind it, we have covered what BS EN 12453 requires separately.

Where the duty comes from

Two pieces of legislation do most of the work.

Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a duty on employers and those in control of premises towards people who are not their employees. On a residential development or a commercial car park, that means residents, visitors, delivery drivers and children.

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 add duties on the safety and maintenance of equipment at commercial premises.

The Health and Safety Executive is clear that a landlord responsible for a powered gate as part of a work activity must maintain standards of construction, inspection and maintenance equivalent to those expected of an employer.

What this looks like in practice

Five things, in rough order of how often they are missing when we attend a site:

1. A current risk assessment. Not one from the year the gate went in. It should reflect the site as it is now.
2. A maintenance schedule that is actually being followed, with records. Safety devices lose sensitivity over time; photocells drift, safe edges harden, force settings change as the gate ages.
3. Force test records. Someone should have measured the forces and written them down, at installation and at service visits.
4. The operation and maintenance manual handed over by the installer, kept somewhere findable rather than in a drawer at a previous agent’s office.
5. A route for reporting faults, and evidence you acted on them.

Reassess when the site changes, not just when the gate does

This is the one that catches people out. A risk assessment is about the gate in its setting, so it can be invalidated by changes that have nothing to do with the gate itself:

• a new pedestrian route, bin store or cycle rack near the gate line;
• a change of use, for example flats becoming student accommodation or a nursery opening on site;
• new lighting, planting or parking that changes sightlines;
• a change in who uses the entrance, particularly where children or vulnerable people are now present.

The HSE expects risk assessments to consider the unique environment of use and the presence of vulnerable people. A gate that was safe for a gated office car park is not automatically safe once the site becomes residential.

Foreseeable misuse counts, and signage is not a defence

Duty holders sometimes assume a sign saying pedestrians should use the side gate discharges the risk. It does not. The assessment has to account for what people will foreseeably do, not what they are told to do. Pedestrians will walk through a vehicle entrance if it is the direct route. Children will treat a moving gate as interesting.

Designing and setting the gate so that foreseeable misuse does not cause serious injury is the requirement; instructions and signage sit on top of that, not instead of it.

Why this is worth taking seriously

Two children died in separate automatic gate accidents in 2010, and the enforcement that followed shows where liability lands. In one of those cases two companies were prosecuted under section 3(1) of the 1974 Act and fined £60,000 and £50,000, with £40,000 costs each. The duty is on whoever is in control of the equipment and the premises.

A sensible baseline if you have inherited a gate

If you have taken on a site and do not know the gate’s history, the pragmatic order is:

1. Get a safety survey and force test, and find out where you actually stand.
2. Recover or reconstruct the documentation: manual, declaration, previous service records.
3. Put a planned maintenance arrangement in place, so the next assessment is not a surprise.
4. Fix anything the survey flags, and keep the evidence that you did.

We carry out gate safety surveys, force testing and planned maintenance and repair for managing agents and facilities teams across London and Hertfordshire.

Frequently asked questions

Is the installer responsible, or am I?

Both, at different stages. An installer who assembles a gate from components takes on manufacturer duties for that machinery. Once it is in use, the person in control of the premises carries the duty to keep it safe, maintained and assessed.

How often should a powered gate be serviced?

For gates in regular use, at least twice a year is the widely recommended interval, more often on heavily used commercial entrances. The right frequency comes out of the risk assessment and the manufacturer’s instructions.

What records should I be able to produce?

A current risk assessment, the operation and maintenance manual, service records, and force test results. If an inspector asked tomorrow, those four are what you would want to hand over.

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Written by Daryl Griffiths, Managing Director, MG Group. Sources: HSE guidance on powered gates and legal responsibilities, Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Checked August 2026. General guidance, not legal advice or a substitute for a site specific risk assessment.