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Letter: Asbestos risks

Published 24 November 2001

From Chris Lodge

Your article states: “From next June, all owners of business premises in
Britain will have to make safe any asbestos in their buildings”
(10 November, p 25).

Under the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, they already have an obligation
to make safe any asbestos in their premises. What the writer refers to is the
planned (and long overdue) implementation of the new Control of Asbestos at Work
Regulations, which will require a risk assessment register of all known and
presumed asbestos materials to be compiled and managed on a continuous
basis.

This will not only apply to business premises as such but to all workplaces.
So if you are a firm that sends personnel to work in council housing, for
example, you will first need a risk assessment of all known and presumed
asbestos materials in those properties.

Burton Latimer, Northants

Issue no. 2318 published 24 November 2001

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