Found asbestos in a Lincoln home? Start here

Lincoln is an engineering city with a cathedral on top. Uphill, around the Bailgate and the Cathedral quarter, the housing is old enough to have been built long before asbestos was common, so what turns up there came in with later refits: textured ceiling coatings, old floor tiles, bath panels and the boards and flues fitted when gas heating went in. Downhill is different. The terraces of the West End, Sincil Bank and Monks Road were built for the workers at Ruston’s, Clayton and Shuttleworth’s and the other foundries and engine works along the Witham, and the council estates that followed, the Ermine, Birchwood, St Giles and Moorland, went up between the 1930s and the 1970s, when asbestos cement roofing, soffits and insulating board were standard in new housing. That is where the higher risk materials are most likely to be. Which rules apply is settled by the material, never by the age of the house.

Every HSE licensed asbestos contractor with a Lincolnshire address

There are two firms holding a licence with a Lincolnshire address. The paid membership directory that most searches turn up first is shorter than the licence register, because not every licence holder subscribes. This is the full licensed set, straight from the register.

One firm here holds a scaffolding licence, not a removal one: Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services UK, Ltd. in Grimsby. A scaffolding licence covers putting up and taking down scaffold around asbestos work, not removing anything, so those are not who you ring about a garage roof.

Three things about the Lincoln list worth knowing

• Check the Type column before you ring. The Grimsby firm holds a scaffolding licence, which covers putting up scaffold around asbestos work rather than removing the material. For a removal job you want a standard licence, and in this county that means the Lincoln firm.
• Lincolnshire is one of the biggest counties in England, and its licence list is one of the shortest. That means the firms in Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Hull quote for Lincoln work as a matter of routine, and the Nottingham list on this site is the one most Lincoln customers end up using alongside this one.
• The county runs a free disposal service, and it is unusual. Most councils let you take bonded asbestos to a tip. Lincolnshire runs a booked appointment service at two specialist sites instead, one of them in Lincoln, and sends you the bag to use. The details are below.

Getting rid of asbestos in Lincoln

Lincolnshire County Council will not take asbestos at any of its household waste recycling centres. Instead it runs a free white asbestos disposal service that has to be booked in advance, weekdays only, with a limit of two deposits per household per year. There are two specialist disposal sites, one in Lincoln and one in Skegness, and the council tells you the address when the booking is approved. It posts you a bag, 900mm by 1,200mm, and only that bag will be accepted. The load has to be white chrysotile bonded asbestos only, sealed inside the bag, and no heavier than 20kg. You unload it yourself to the spot the site staff point at. The council does not collect from your home. Anything a contractor has already removed cannot go through this route, because it counts as business waste. The county’s white asbestos disposal booking page has the rules and the booking form.

Who checks the work in Lincoln

Licensed removal anywhere in Britain is notified to and inspected by the HSE, and the engineering works and the RAF stations around the city are HSE premises too. For shops, offices and rented homes in the city, the enforcing body for the duty to manage asbestos is either the HSE or City of Lincoln Council’s environmental health officers, and which one depends on the premises. Tenants go to the landlord first, because the duty to manage asbestos rests there.

The East Midlands and the mesothelioma figures

Lincoln’s exposure was industrial. Ruston’s and the other engine and boiler works along the Witham used asbestos for lagging and insulation for most of the twentieth century, the railway works used it for brake linings and carriage fittings, and the RAF stations that ring the city used it in hangars and accommodation blocks. The trades that built the post war estates handled it daily. Mesothelioma has a lag of decades, so the current rate is a record of that period.

The East Midlands records 53.1 asbestos related mesothelioma deaths per million men, a little below the Great Britain figure of 55.9. Figures from the HSE’s mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain.

What asbestos removal in Lincoln is likely to cost

Lincoln sits in the East Midlands labour band, so expect prices below the South. Travel is the factor that moves the price here. With so few standard licence holders in the county and the next nearest in Nottingham, Sheffield or Hull, a firm coming in from outside will price the journey into the quote, and licensed work needs fourteen days’ notice to the HSE before anyone starts. The free council disposal service takes the waste cost out of small bonded jobs, which is worth knowing when a quote for a garage roof includes a disposal fee. For the wider picture, see what asbestos removal costs across the UK, and where the published price guides disagree.

Asbestos removal in Lincoln: questions people ask

Will the council remove asbestos from my house?

No. Neither City of Lincoln Council nor Lincolnshire County Council removes asbestos for homeowners. The county runs a free, booked disposal service for small amounts of white bonded asbestos, which is covered above.

Can I take asbestos to the tip in Lincoln?

Not to a recycling centre. Book the county’s white asbestos disposal service instead. It is free, weekdays by appointment, two deposits a year, in the bag the council posts you, 20kg maximum. A contractor’s waste cannot go this way.

Do I always need a licensed contractor?

Not for every material. The law treats some lower risk asbestos cement as non-licensed work, while insulating board, pipe lagging and sprayed coatings must go to a firm holding a standard licence. The safe move is to have the material identified by a lab first, so you know which rules apply before anyone touches it. See our guide to what an asbestos survey costs.

How many licensed contractors are near me?

2 hold a current licence with a Lincolnshire address, and the Type column shows which of them holds a standard removal licence. Firms based in Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire also work across Lincoln, so your real choice is wider than the table.

Getting a quote from a Lincoln contractor

The Lincoln firm quotes for this work every week, and so do the firms in the counties around it. To widen the field, see the licensed contractors covering Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and Sheffield and South Yorkshire.

Not in Lincoln? See every area we cover.