asbestos

For housing associations, ensuring residents live in safe, well-maintained homes is a responsibility that sits at the heart of everything you do.

Managing ageing housing stock, meeting regulatory requirements and delivering improvement programmes all require careful planning, specialist knowledge and trusted partners who understand the challenges of working within occupied properties.

Your home should always be a place where you feel safe, comfortable and secure.

Behind the scenes, housing associations work hard to maintain properties, carry out improvements and ensure homes remain safe for residents and their families.

One area that often goes unnoticed is environmental safety.

This includes managing materials and substances that may be present in older buildings and ensuring that any maintenance or refurbishment work is carried out safely and professionally.

That is where specialist companies such as Envirocall play an important role.

Envirocall Limited, the specialist asbestos removal and management company with a head office at Elmdon House in Coleshill, West Midlands has strengthened their management team with the appointment of Lee McCann as Operations Director.

He is well known within the industry and brings a wealth of experience to the team from his various roles within construction, housing associations and building and property maintenance.

The Asbestos Removal Contractors Association advises housing providers on the legalities of dealing with asbestos…

What are your legal duties?

It is vital that owners and managers of properties, constructed prior to the year 2000, take the risks from asbestos seriously and deal with asbestos in a controlled and safe manner. Today it is still the greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK, with currently approx. 5,000 asbestos-related cancer deaths per year.

Property owners and managers should be aware of their legal duties regarding asbestos management, and the need for locating and assessing the risks from any asbestos-containing materials in a building.

Specifically relating to managing and working with asbestos is the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012).  Regulation 5, requires employers to identify the presence of asbestos, and its type and condition, before any building, maintenance or other work, liable to disturb asbestos, begins. It also sets out the requirement to arrange an asbestos survey if existing information on the presence of asbestos in the premises is incomplete or appears unreliable.