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CAWR 2006

The Regulations came in to force on 13th November 2006 and replace three existing sets of legislation: CAWR 2002, The Asbestos (Licensing) Regulations & The Asbestos (Prohibitions) Regulations.

The legislation affects everyone who has a responsibility for maintenance of non-domestic premises including owners, occupiers and employers (The Duty Holder). The regulations also cover common areas of certain domestic premises, such as purpose built flats or houses coverted into flats.

Duty Holders

The prime legal responsibilities, which also applied under CAWR 2002, require those in charge of premises (Duty Holders) to:

• Manage asbestos risks;

• Assess whether premises contain asbestos containing materials (ACMs);

• Assess risks from ACMs

• Take action to manage the risk from ACMs.

• Take reasonable steps to determine/identify the location of materials in premises likely to contain asbestos and check their condition.

• Presume materials contain asbestos unless there is strong evidence to suppose they do not.

• Assess the risk of likelihood of anyone being exposed to asbestos from these materials.

• Keep a written record of the location and condition of ACMs and presumed ACMs and keep it up to date. (An Asbestos register)

• Repair or remove any material that contains, or is presumed to contain asbestos, if necessary, because of the likelihood of disturbance, and its location or condition.

• Prepare an action plan to manage that risk and put it into effect to ensure that:

– Information on the location and condition of ACMs is given to people who may disturb them during work activities.

– Any material known or presumed to contain asbestos is kept in a good state of repair and undisturbed.

• Monitor the condition of ACMs and presumed ACMs.

• Review and monitor the action plan and the arrangements made to put it in place.

Action Planning

To assist in compliance, and specifically duties imposed under regulation 4, the HSE has recommended the following 7 - point action plan:

1. Confirm what you already know about the ACMs at your premises and review how you are currently managing them;

2. Prevent work at your premises that may disturb the fabric of the building until measures to control the risk have been implemented;

3. Carry out an initial inspection for damage and disturbance of materials and take immediate action to control these;

4. Develop a strategy for compliance;

5. Carry out a Risk Assessment of your ACMs to set priorities for management;

6. Develop a long-term management plan; and

7. Monitor and review the management plan.

In summary the three key challenges to the Duty Holder are:

• To raise awareness of the new rules;

• To ascertain whether ACMs are present in the premises and to assess their quantity and condition; and

• To assess the risks and plan the controls.

Additional Requirements

The following requirements, which mainly affect those engaged in asbestos removal work, were introduced under CAWR 2006:

1. Application of new control limits with regard to exposure to airborne asbestos products during removal work:

2. Specific mandatory training requirements for anyone liable to be exposed to asbestos (Regulation 10);

3. Practical guidance for the determination of exposure to asbestos in the air and a requirement to measure the concentration of asbestos in the air in accordance with the 1997 World Health Organisation recommended method;

4. Most work with textured decorative coatings (TC’s) will be removed from the licensing regime, although work with TC’s is still to be undertaken by trained workers with a risk assessment and appropriate controls (see HSE press notice EO: 26).

Use Of External Specialists

You may decide to engage the services of external specialist consultants to assist you with the entire process of achieving compliance with the Regulations, but certainly specialist surveyors and/or laboratories should be appointed to carry out surveys and any sampling or analysis that needs to take place to check for the presence of ACMs. They will also be able to provide you with qualified advice regarding the action that will need to be taken to properly manage any ACMs identified.

Where ACMs remediation or removal work needs to be undertaken, appropriate specialist contractors will again need to be engaged.