Asbestos Removal in Glasgow and Strathclyde

This page lists every firm the HSE currently licenses in Glasgow and Strathclyde for asbestos removal. The HSE licences asbestos work in Scotland as well as England. Glasgow City Council will take smaller household asbestos items at Shieldhall recycling centre on Renfrew Road. It is for residents, from their own home. They will not take the asbestos off the building.

Current rules sit on Glasgow’s asbestos in domestic properties page. Check that page before you load a car. A trader cannot use Shieldhall for this.

Swipe the table on a phone. Firms registered elsewhere in Strathclyde on this list routinely work in the city.

4 of the 5 hold a standard licence, which is the one that covers removal. The rest are on the register with a narrower type.

How to read the licensed contractor list for Glasgow

• Watch the expiry dates. None of the Strathclyde and Glasgow firms hold a licence expiring in the next 6 weeks.
• Watch the type. One firm here holds a scaffolding licence, not a removal one: A S Scaffolding Ltd. in Glasgow. 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.

Ask for the licence number and match it to the table. Scottish building standards and the Fire (Scotland) Act are a different regime from England. The asbestos licence is still an HSE licence. Do not mix the two up when you read a quote.

The close is not a household tip job

A lot of Glasgow housing is tenements. Textured coating on a ceiling, old floor tiles, and insulating board in a cupboard turn up inside flats. The common close and the common stair are shared. Waste from a close is not “a couple of sheets from my own house” in the way Shieldhall means it. If the material is in the close, start with the factor or the owners together, not with a recycling-centre booking.

Do not break the material to see what it is. Do not sweep the dust. Do not put it in a general skip or down the chute.

Where asbestos turns up in Glasgow housing

Post-war tenement refurbishments, 1960s deck-access blocks and later infill kitchens are where people usually find it. A cement garage or outbuilding is less of a Glasgow job than it is in an English terrace city, though those still exist on the edges. Insulating board around a boiler or in a store is licensed work more often than textured coating is.

Deck-access blocks and high flats have common stores, refuse rooms and old service cupboards. That is building-manager territory, not a Shieldhall booking. If you own one flat in a block like that, the factor or the association is the first call.

A sample from a tenement ceiling is a small job. Removing the whole close lining is not. Do not let a quote for “Artex” hide whether they are sampling, encapsulating, or stripping. Those are different prices and different levels of work. Ask which one you are buying.

Not every job needs a licensed firm

Some cement-bonded items a householder can take to Shieldhall, if the council will still accept them on the day. Lagging, insulating board and anything broken is not that job. If the work is licensed, the firm on the table is the one you ring.

The national picture on what is licensed work, and what the job tends to cost, is on what asbestos removal costs. Those figures are drawn from the English market. Treat them as a starting point in Glasgow, not a price list.

Where Scotland sits on mesothelioma

• Scotland: 47.7 deaths per million
• Great Britain as a whole: 55.9

Below the England figure of 57.5, though that covers the whole country. Clydeside shipbuilding used asbestos in enormous quantities, and mesothelioma takes decades to appear, so the men exposed in those yards are the generation in these figures now.

Who this affects has moved on. The HSE says the highest risk today sits with people who worked in the building trades while asbestos was still in use. In a city of tenement flats and post-war housing, that means the exposure that matters now happens during ordinary repairs.

Figures from the HSE’s mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain.

What asbestos removal costs in Glasgow

Most domestic jobs in the UK land somewhere between £400 and £3,500. A small householder drop-off at Shieldhall is not a removal price. An enclosure around insulating board in a tenement is. Get more than one quote, in writing, and ask whether disposal sits inside the figure. A consignment note for hazardous waste still applies in Scotland.

Newcastle is the nearest English city page with a live list, if you want a sense of how these pages work: Newcastle. Those firms are not Glasgow firms.

Who pays in a tenement

Inside one flat, the owner or the landlord is usually the person who appoints the contractor. In the close, it is often the factor or the owners together under the title deeds or the Tenements (Scotland) Act. Get that in writing before anyone attends. A quote addressed to one flat for close waste will not get the work done.

Every landlord in Scotland also has to be on the Scottish Landlord Register. That is a separate duty from the HSE asbestos licence the contractor holds.

Questions about asbestos removal in Glasgow

Is asbestos licensing different in Scotland?

The HSE still licenses the contractor. Scottish building standards and fire law are separate. A quote that only talks about the Fire Safety Order was not written for this building.

Can I take close waste to Shieldhall?

Shieldhall is for residents from their own home. Shared-close waste is a different job. Ask the factor, then a firm on the table.

The ceiling is textured coating. Is that licensed removal?

Often not, if it is left in place or removed under the right method. That is a competence question for the contractor, not a recycling-centre booking. Do not scrape it to see. Get it sampled. Shieldhall will not identify it for you.

Paisley and East Kilbride sit on this list. Will they come into Glasgow?

The HSE files them under Strathclyde. Ask how far they travel and whether the quote still holds for a tenement close in the city. A mileage charge should be in the written quote, not added on the day.

HSE licence and Scottish fire law are not the same document

The table is an HSE asbestos licence list. Scottish building standards and the Fire (Scotland) Act sit alongside it. A quote that only talks about the Fire Safety Order was written for England. Send it back if the job is a Glasgow close.

Every landlord in Scotland also has to be on the Scottish Landlord Register. That is a third duty, separate from the HSE licence the contractor holds and from the factor’s job on the close. If you let a flat and the close needs work, get the factor’s name on the paperwork before anyone attends.

Getting a quote from a Glasgow contractor

Ring anyone in the table. Those numbers come straight from the HSE register.

Say whether it is a flat, a close, a garage, or a shop. Say whether anyone still lives there. That is enough for a firm on the table to know whether they are quoting a sample, a wrap-and-drop, or an enclosure. If you already have a sample result, name the material.

Not in Glasgow? See all areas we cover.