This is a question that we are regularly asked by confused property developers, builders, tradespeople, and new business owners: ‘Am I exempt from asbestos regulations because … I am developing / renovating a property (built pre-1999) for sale or rent? Or when opening a business in an existing property? Or working in someone’s home?’
Well, the answer is a straightforward one.
As of the first week of January 2023, Environmental Inspection has been approved as a member of ACAD – one of two UK trade associations supporting and representing companies in the asbestos removal and remediation industry.
It has been a great year for Environmental Inspection for several reasons. We have been pleased to support our regular clients with their ongoing health and safety compliance. We’ve worked on interesting projects, big and small. We’ve worked on some complex industrial projects and some heritage sites. We’ve managed increasingly large asbestos removal projects. And, we’ve been joined in the team by Alasdair – a highly experienced asbestos consultant.
An Asbestos Management Plan is a legal requirement for all businesses. It is also a common cause of non-compliance when a plan does not exist but the business has a clear need for one that should reasonably be understood by the directors and any contractors.
This month we were delighted to welcome Alasdair to the Environmental Inspection team.
Alasdair comes with a background in technical occupational health and safety in leadership and analyst roles and training. This includes:
‘Can I drop off some samples?’ This is not an uncommon request for us. We thought it would be useful to write a blog about the circumstances in which asbestos sampling and surveying are appropriate and the different kinds of asbestos surveys.
As we have written about before, asbestos exposure is still an issue that is causing death. Despite legislation protecting people from asbestos negligence (passed between 1970 and 1999), the deaths of people who were exposed 20 or more years ago are still happening each year.
Deaths from the various types of asbestos-related illnesses peaked between about 2018 and 2020 and are starting to decline. How quickly they decline is yet to be seen. But we know from our day-to-day experience that exposure is still occurring. So, what are the reasons for this?
We’ve seen a lot of signs recently that the government is seeking to increase the scope of its enforcement action around asbestos.
Discussions in parliament and policy documents that we have seen indicate a desire for full asbestos compliance across the economy. It would be unwise therefore to expect any tolerance of non-compliance from now on.
Did you know that you could claim tax relief on the costs of removing asbestos from business premises? Not only that, you could actually receive a grant of an additional 50% of your costs as well as having the full cost reimbursed. That is, 150% of your costs are paid to you in total.
It’s part of what HMRC refers to as ‘Corporate Intangibles Research and Development’ which applies to ‘land remediation relief’ for work on land in a contaminated state.
We noticed a story in the local media this week (Chronicle article here) that is not uncommon, but, we rarely see it on this scale.
We don’t know the details of this particular case, but what has been reported appears very concerning.