Asbestos information before stripping out fixed equipment

Ask the building's responsible person for:

• The asbestos register and relevant site plans.
• The current management plan and site liaison arrangements.
• Survey reports covering the proposed work area.
• The survey type, date, limitations and inaccessible areas.
• Any later work or evidence that changes the records.
• The person authorised to assess whether more information is required.
• The process for stopping and reporting an unexpected discovery.

Identify the actual asset, work boundary and affected surfaces in the request. "Workshop clearance" may be too broad for the person reviewing the information to understand what will be disturbed.

For Great Britain, HSE's duty-to-manage guidance explains the requirement to manage asbestos risks in relevant buildings and provide information to people who may disturb it. Responsibilities depend on the circumstances; do not assume that either the landlord or tenant always holds every duty.

HSE's survey guidance distinguishes a management survey, used to support normal occupation and use, from a refurbishment or demolition survey addressing work that can disturb hidden materials.

The practical question is whether the evidence is suitable for the proposed removal. A contractor should not treat an inaccessible area or an excluded section as proof that asbestos is absent.

Ask a competent person to review the work against the survey scope. If further assessment or surveying is needed, arrange it through the responsible process before the affected work begins. This guide does not provide sampling or removal instructions.

Use the dismantling schedule to identify fixings, openings, services and building interfaces. Include those details in the information request and contractor discussion.

Consider a fictional removal of extraction equipment. The fan may be an identified sale asset, while the work around duct penetrations and surrounding materials creates a separate building-information question. Permission to sell the fan does not answer that question.

Keep landlord permissions and reinstatement aligned with the technical scope. A commercial consent to remove equipment does not certify asbestos conditions.

HSE's information-sharing guidance advises providing relevant information early, including when seeking quotations. It also describes the need to explain location, condition and site arrangements.

Record who received the applicable documents and which version was used. Update them if the work boundary changes. A report stored in a head-office folder cannot inform a contractor who has never seen it.

If unexpected suspect material is found, stop the affected work and follow the agreed escalation process. Do not continue to expose more material to make the identification easier. Use the separate unknown-materials clearance guide for the broader discovery record.

Tell UK Auction Group which assets are ready and which remain subject to building-information checks. Set collection dates around resolved prerequisites, so the sale timetable does not conceal an outstanding disturbance risk.

Collection and clearance