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Railways Address Asbestos Legislation
Railway Strategies - June 2005

General Managers, health and safety managers and sometimes individual station managers are now squaring up to new responsibilities imposed by the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations, 2002. The legislation places an explicit duty to take all reasonable steps to locate and record the presence of asbestos containing materials in commercial buildings, and for the railway industry this is a huge undertaking.

Regulation 4 requires those who have responsibilities for maintenance activities in non-domestic premises to assess whether there is asbestos in their premises, and depending on its condition, either remove it or manage it to make sure that future maintenance activities do not expose workers to avoidable risk. They must ensure that information on the location and condition of these materials is given to anyone likely to disturb it.

Wide use of asbestos in railway buildings, stations, rolling stock and tunnelling has made compliance with Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002 challenging. Different companies, divisions, managing agents and tenants may all have an interest, and identifying the dutyholder who carries specific responsibility is rarely straightforward.

‘There is a lot of confusion within the industry not only about the extent of surveying and asbestos management planning demanded by the regulation, but who carries responsibility as dutyholder,’ said Max Lopacki, Managing Director of the natas:group, which provides asbestos training and management service to industries across the UK.

‘It is clear that the railway industry will struggle for some time with compliance, not only because of the fragmented areas of responsibility within the industry but also because asbestos was so widely used in everything from cement tunnel linings to pipe insulation and fire containment,’ he added.

The organisation runs hundreds of courses across the UK and Ireland each year from full asbestos surveying and accreditation to training in Duty to Manage Asbestos; it also stages in-house asbestos management courses for railway operating companies. Natas works in partnership with the HSE and also delivers both IOSH and BOHS proficiency courses.

Asbestos was used right up until the end of the 1990’s a vast range of construction products, and its lethal characteristics concealed by the long gestation of the diseases it inflicts. Today more than 3500 people die each year from exposures often dating back 30 years or more, and the figure has not peaked yet. Further information on Natas is available from www.natasgroup.co.uk .