Hi all,


Im hoping that you might be able to help me a bit out here.


I have been approached by someone who would like to set up an asbestos removal company from scratch.

He wants me to obtain the licence and help set things up.

I am fully aware that the licence can be a lengthy process.


The thing that concerns me is that it being a new company i will have to set up a health and safety policys , risk assessmnets, ssow etc.

This is going to be fairly hard surley, if i have nothing that the compnay has done previously surley ???

Or will it make things easier for me as i can build up the company as i want ??? confused ???

Has anyone had experince of doing this at all ??

Another thing i am not sure of is how much to charge ? surley i cant charge consulatncy rates of £300-500 per day ? or can i ? once again confused


Any kind of help or guidance would be much appreciated.


Thanks

I work part time for a fencing and ground works contractor and also freelance.


I have never dealt with asbestos before, but it does seem like an enjoyable challenge.

Sorry,


I have my diploma, nebosh general along with other various certs.


I have worked as a health and safety manager for nearly 5 years in the same role.

Thanks for taking your time to reply

Hi Safezone,
Asbestos is very specialised and given the current HSE "initiative" I would ensure I had all my ducks in a row before such an undertaking.
I work for a national housebuilder and have dealt with asbestos surveys and removal companies but there are several C&G courses P402 , P405 etc which I would seek before I even attempted to look at something like this. But this is only the academic side of it - you still need to chalk up a bit of experience which would be difficult if your doing it from scratch. Its not an industry for trial and error.

Look at the courses as an investment for the future and make sure you have really good professional indemnity insurance.
Also make sure you get full details of who is actually licensed - is it you or the person asking you to set up the company - remember where the line of responsibility lies!

(and get the money up front ! lol)

JM

Hi safezone, i have set up three seperate asbestos companies over the last ten years, i have also helped over 10 other companies in the renewal process for their respective licences.
I can advise you that unless you are experienced and knowledgable in this field then it is not for the faint hearted !
The regulations and acops are highly complicated and as with CDM there is a strong requirement for individual competence, if you are being asked to set up a licenced removal company from scratch then you are going to spend the next three years gaining enough experience to get going or you will have to hire in a large and often costly person with enough experience to comply with the requirements of the regs (CAR2006)

hope this helps

regards

GJ

Forget taking insurance that is not a get out clause in case you give incompetent advice. You have the responsibility of people lives in the advice you give and with your opening post, I would recommend that you do not set up this company.

As Ginga john said above, you need to prove competence, your opening post does not show your competence in this field at all, never mind setting up a company's H&S management systems.

I know abit about complex advanced scaffolding but I wouldn't go erecting the scaffold, I would leave that to the people who are competent to do so.

I am sure you have a wealth of experience and knowledge in the field you work in but if you have huge doubts then it may come back to bite you, or even worse place people lives at risk.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

I will most probably step away from this one in that case.


I take it i would have had to worked in the asbestos field for a while to have my bearings in this situation.


Thanks for the advice