The client is responsible for the property and thus all hazards therein They have a duty to protect your men and the tenant. so........Their procedures should be suitable and sufficient, clearly they are not. They can't leave a contractor to second guess. Shouldn't the property already have had a asbestos Survey done? Why is it that LAs think they can just ignore the regs and pass the buck

Provision of water is an "essential" under a tennancy agreement so any leak would be considered an emergency repair. As such switching off the supply until such time as quotes are obtained (since we are talking about an LA) prices budgeted and dates agreed would not be an option. Whilst most landlords will hold management surveys for asbestos in their properties the majority do not hold R&D surveys excepting in those rare circumstances where a thorough overhaul of the property has been fully planned. Perhaps the regulations themselves are at fault here for not requiring a thorough inspection of forseeable circumstances in real life use of the property rather than the make believe world where nothing ever gets damaged. With the scenario described (especially as we approach the pipe rupturing months of winter) there do seem to be some omissions in the procedures e.g. how is the tennant protected? what happens if significant amounts of asbestos are found/disturbed? is there an out of hours tennant relocation service? do engineers don tyvek coveralls every time they enter a property? do engineers carry spare clothing including work boots to change in to? do engineers have suitable bags to hold contaminated tools and clothing?

The LA should have an asbestos register/management survey for their properties. One interesting point to note is that Landlords are not automatically compelled to have management surveys of domestic properties. This is complicated as the communal areas of a block of flats are not classed as domestic, only the private residential flat itself. However as soon as they arrange to carry out some work they do need a management survey as a bare minimum. Some LA/HA penny pinch and have not surveyed their domestic properties routinely. You are permitted to carry out some maintenance tasks using the information in the management survey. The management survey should have identified obvious and typical locations of asbestos. Typical to the house/flat type, age and what has been discovered over the years. Therefore if your engineer has not got access to this information then if the house/flat predates 2000 they should just turn the water off. The asbestos regulations would take precedence over any tenancy agreement however I guess the LA would have to make some sort of provision for drinking water. If they have the information and there is nothing of concern affecting the work area they can proceed to carry out the repair, stopping if they suspect asbestos containing materials. Most domestic properties are not riddled with asbestos. It is there and exposure has to be controlled but it is also important not to exaggerate the risks. One issue for contractors is the huge variance in how LA/HA handle this issue, so I cannot criticize them for defaulting to asking for a R&D survey.

There seems to be no problem with planned work R&D surveys being done, the LA carry out these as a matter of course. There has been a contractor meeting where the different trades have concerns for non-planned works and emergencies with regard to surveys being required before simple tasks such as putting screws into walls or taking fires from walls to look up a chimney are carried out. The implications is the cost in ££££'s and time waiting for the survey company to visit a premises. The LA, I think, were spooked by the amount of money they could be spending on surveys, the asbestos company involved then started to band about the term 'reasonably practicable', changing their tune from insisting on surveys for all 'intrusive' works no matter how small quoting Reg 4 of CAWR (which does not apply to domestic properties anyway)