Eastbourne engineer receives MBE for services to lift and escalator engineering

Dave Cooper, CEO of Eastbourne-based engineering consultancy LECS (UK) was awarded an MBE in the King’s 2023 birthday honours list 2023 .

Eminent engineer, Dave Cooper was awarded the honour in recognition of his services to lift and escalator engineering.

Since 1980, Dave has been an influential engineer in the sector while also dedicating much of his career to improving the safety of lift and escalator passengers and engineers. As a result he is widely acknowledged as a worldwide leading safety expert for vertical transportation of goods and people.

A well-known author and speaker, his research into accidents on escalators prompted hugely important changes to the European standard, EN115 thereby improving the safety of escalators and directly preventing deaths and serious injuries. He has contributed extensively to the development of regulations within the built environment and has served on the British Standards committee for lifts & escalators since 1989. He chairs the panel for the publication of industry related standards, and represents the UK on improving lift safety in Europe. The impact of his work, in his lifelong quest to have zero fatalities (for passengers and engineers) within this sector – has been described as ‘phenomenal’.

Dave continues to enjoy a career spanning more than 40 years as a consulting engineer and expert witness in his specialist area of vertical transportation. This expertise has led him to be a key expert witness in numerous legal cases in the area of risk, accidents and injury.

Dave is as regular international speaker at global conferences, author of key books on vertical transportation including accidents and litigation within the field, and retains a keen interest in research in his position as visiting professor at the University of Northampton while also supporting the next generation of engineers. In his capacity as CEO of independent engineering consultants, LECS UK, he is a key advisor to governments, including the UK’s Government’s Department for Transport, on major vertical transportation projects. These include London’s only public cable car across the Thames and the new Luton DART. He has also advised on the US$40 million renovation of the Armenian Marriott Hotel, Yerevan as well as the development of Queensway Quay, Gibraltar.

He is a fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology, and has won an array of awards and honours over his career including CIBSE’s Silver Medal for services to the institution as well as the Sir Moir Lockhead Award by the Society of Engineers for a career dedicated to safety in the lift and escalator industry. Dave is also a Vice President of CIBSE, that professional engineering institution regulated by the Engineering Council, which has over 21,000 members.

Outside of his work as consulting engineer and expert witness, he is a founding trustee and chairman of the UK’s Lift Industry Charity that assists industry members and/or their families after an accident at work and also the chair of the Lift & Escalator Symposium Educational Trust which since 2011 has organised an annual peer reviewed symposium in the UK and China.

On a more local level, David is a past president of Eastbourne’s Chamber of Commerce, joint president of Eastbourne AM Rotary Club and a member of Eastbourne 41 Club.