Asbestos failings cost contractor dearly

Health & Safety update 12/10/2011

A London-based building contractor will have to pay out more than £25,000 in fines and costs, after failing to ensure the proper asbestos exposure precautions were in place on one of his sites.

Fadil Adil, from Bromley in South East London, was found to have insufficient protection in place for his workers during demolition work being carried out in June 2010 on a building on Bromley High Street.

During a spot check, health and safety inspectors found that asbestos insulating boards from the ceilings of the building - which contained a restaurant on the ground floor, with flats above it - were being broken up with sledge hammers and hand-operated breakers. This would have exposed the three men carrying out the demolition to asbestos fibres.

It emerged during the investigation that Adil did not have a licence to work with asbestos, was not trained in construction management, had not carried out an asbestos survey and had not provided the workers with any guidance for if they should discover the substance.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector, Ian Seabrook, said that he had ignored the well-known dangers of asbestos.

"It is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK with around 1,000 tradesmen dying each year from asbestos-related diseases," Seabrook pointed out. "Anyone working with these sorts of materials has to commission an asbestos survey to ascertain the level of work needed and then have asbestos removed in a controlled manner by a licensed contractor."

Adil was fined £19,300 for breaching the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006, and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and ordered to pay £7,654 in costs.

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