Asbestos in an Occupied Office Refurbishment
A 1978 six-storey office block of 4,200 m² is being refurbished. Floors one and two remain occupied by 90 staff; floors three to six are stripped out. The only asbestos information is a 2019 management survey, which presumed asbestos insulation board (AIB) to the service risers and textured coating to stair soffits. The principal contractor has not commissioned a refurbishment and demolition survey. Its site manager argues that because the AIB is 'presumed', workers can drill the riser panels under controlled conditions, and has set a 14-week programme with £15,000 per week liquidated damages. On day three, a supervisor photographs a labourer drilling a riser panel with no enclosure, no RPE and no decontamination unit; dust is visible on the landing. Two other workers used a breaker on the stair soffit the previous day. The client's representative is on annual leave and the project manager says 'we will pick it up at handover'. The site has no asbestos register on display and no emergency procedure for inadvertent disturbance.
1. Evaluate whether the drilling and breaking work can lawfully continue and identify the principal duty-holder failures. Explain your reasoning rather than listing statutes.
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Conclusion: the work should not continue. 'Presumed' is a prompt to manage, not a permission to disturb. The management survey is not suitable for refurbishment because it did not use intrusive sampling and expressly presumes AIB in the areas to be stripped.
Reasoning: The risk is not theoretical: visible dust, no enclosure, no RPE and no decontamination mean fibres may be airborne and spread to occupied floors. AIB is friable when drilled or broken and is treated as licensable work unless a specific short-duration exemption applies; the default is a licensed contractor. The client, as duty holder, has failed to provide a current asbestos register and refurbishment/demolition survey, and has not ensured that the project is planned around the asbestos. Under CDM 2015 the principal contractor has failed to plan, manage and monitor the work; the contractor has failed to supervise and to stop when the hazard became obvious. There is no emergency procedure, no asbestos awareness evidence and no arrangements to protect the 90 occupants. The project manager's 'handover' comment shows the risk is being deferred, which is not consistent with the duty to manage. The 14-week programme and damages explain the pressure but do not change the legal position: programme pressure is not a defence. The correct decision is to stop, isolate and re-plan.
2. Set out the immediate actions you would take in the first 24 hours. Justify each action by the risk it controls.
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- Stop and secure the third-floor landing and riser area; lock off, sign and exclude all but essential personnel. This prevents further disturbance and spread.
- Treat the three workers as potentially exposed. Do not let them leave in contaminated clothing; bag outer clothing, wash, and arrange occupational health review and exposure records. This controls secondary exposure to families and creates a legal record.
- Prevent cleaning by ordinary staff. Visible dust should not be swept or vacuumed with domestic equipment; arrange a licensed asbestos contractor to decontaminate the area, including the landing and any adjacent occupied space if air movement is suspected.
- Inform the client, principal contractor and building occupants in plain language; give practical advice and a point of contact. This is both a duty and a way to prevent rumour and further exposure.
- Commission urgent intrusive survey/sampling by a competent, accredited surveyor and air monitoring where needed; do not rely on the 2019 presumption. This establishes the extent and informs controls.
- Suspend the affected works and review the construction phase plan. Record decisions, photographs and witness statements. Consider whether the incident is reportable to HSE; take specialist advice rather than guessing. The reasoning is that immediate containment, exposure recording and competent investigation are more important than restoring production.
3. Explain how the remaining refurbishment should be planned and procured so that asbestos is managed compliantly, including the interface with the occupied floors.
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Start with a refurbishment and demolition survey of all areas to be disturbed, plus a revised register and drawings. The client should provide this information to the principal designer and principal contractor before work is priced; otherwise the programme and cost are built on an unsafe assumption.
Where AIB is confirmed, decide whether to remove or protect. Removal is usually appropriate before strip-out because the work will disturb it. Use a licensed asbestos contractor for licensable work, with a written plan of work, site-specific risk assessment and method statement. Notify HSE at least 14 days before licensed work begins. The enclosure should be under negative pressure, with a decontamination unit, controlled entry, air monitoring and clearance by an accredited analyst before reoccupation.
Because 90 staff remain on floors one and two, plan the works to prevent fibre migration: seal penetrations, control the HVAC, use independent air monitoring in occupied areas, schedule noisy/dusty work out of hours, and agree a trigger for stopping work if monitoring rises. Waste must be bagged, labelled and consigned with waste transfer notes. The programme should include realistic time for survey, notification, removal and clearance; the £15,000/week damages should be renegotiated, not used to justify shortcuts. Finally, hand over an updated register and drawings, and brief the occupants.