Found asbestos in a Brighton home? Start here

Brighton and Hove has two very different kinds of housing, and they carry different asbestos risks. The Regency and Victorian terraces of Kemptown, Hanover and the seafront squares predate asbestos altogether, so anything found in them arrived with later work: textured ceiling coatings from the 1960s and 70s, old floor tiles, bath panels, and the boards and flues fitted when gas central heating went in. The council estates built after the war are a different matter. Whitehawk, Moulsecoomb, Bevendean and Hollingdean went up between the 1930s and the 1970s, when insulating board, pipe lagging and asbestos cement were standard materials, and that is where the higher risk products are most likely to be. Whether the job needs a licensed firm depends on the material, not on when the house was built.

Every HSE licensed asbestos contractor with an East Sussex address

The register shows one firm holding a licence with an East Sussex address. The trade body directory that comes up first in a search shows paying members only, so it can miss firms. This is the full licensed set, straight from the register.

Every firm on this list holds a standard licence, which is the type that covers removal work.

Three things about the Brighton list worth knowing

• The one licensed firm is in Newhaven, not Brighton. Newhaven is about nine miles east along the coast, twenty minutes by road on the A259. The table shows the office address, not the area the firm covers.
• Brighton work is also quoted from West Sussex, Surrey and Kent. With one licence holder in the whole county, most licensed jobs in the city are done by firms based outside it. Worthing and Horsham both hold licences, and the London firms cover Brighton too. So it is worth looking beyond East Sussex here more than in almost any other area.
• Brighton and Hove is a unitary council. East Sussex County Council does not run the city’s tips or its environmental health service. Brighton and Hove City Council does both, which matters for the disposal rules below.

Getting rid of asbestos in Brighton and Hove

Brighton and Hove City Council takes bonded asbestos at one of its two recycling sites, and only one. The Hove site accepts up to four bags of bonded asbestos, wrapped twice in plastic and sealed. You have to bring two pieces of ID, one with a photo and one proving you live in the city. The Brighton site does not take asbestos at all, so do not turn up there with it. The council’s own advice is to wear goggles, a mask and gloves when handling bonded sheets, to dampen small pieces with water, and never to break, cut or saw the material. Anything a contractor has already removed cannot go through the household route, because it counts as business waste. The council’s household waste page has the full list of what the Hove site takes.

Who checks the work in Brighton

Every licensed removal job in the country is notified to the HSE, which inspects it. For shops, offices, hotels and the city’s many houses in multiple occupation, the council’s Health and Safety Team is the enforcing body for the duty to manage asbestos, and it handles asbestos notifications and clearance queries for premises it covers. The council’s page on asbestos in the workplace sets out what a landlord or business owner has to do. Tenants should start with the landlord or managing agent, who carries the legal duty.

The South East and the mesothelioma figures

Brighton had a large building and hotel maintenance trade rather than heavy industry, and that trade used asbestos for decades. The disease can take forty years to appear, so today’s rate is a record of work done in the 1960s and 70s, when the seafront hotels and the post war estates were being refitted.

The South East records 63.7 asbestos related mesothelioma deaths per million men, one of the highest regional rates in Britain and well above the Great Britain figure of 55.9. Figures from the HSE’s mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain.

What asbestos removal in Brighton is likely to cost

Brighton sits in the South East labour band, so expect prices near London levels rather than the national average. Where the city adds its own cost is access. Converted terraces with no parking, basement flats, and the narrow streets of the North Laine and Hanover all add time, and time is what you are paying for. A licensed job also has to be notified to the HSE fourteen days before it starts, so a firm coming from outside the county will price the travel in. For the wider picture, see what asbestos removal costs across the UK, and where the published price guides disagree.

Asbestos removal in Brighton: questions people ask

Will the council remove asbestos from my house?

No. Brighton and Hove City Council does not remove asbestos for homeowners. It takes bonded asbestos at the Hove recycling site within the four bag limit, which is covered above. Council tenants should report suspected asbestos to the housing repairs service rather than touching it.

Can I take asbestos to the tip in Brighton?

Only to the Hove site, and only bonded asbestos. Four bags, wrapped twice, with two forms of ID. The Brighton site refuses it. 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?

1 holds a current licence with an East Sussex address, in Newhaven. Firms based in West Sussex, Surrey and London also work across Brighton, so your real choice is wider than the table.

Getting a quote from a Brighton contractor

The Newhaven firm quotes for Brighton work routinely, and so do the firms across the county line. To widen the field, see the licensed contractors covering Crawley and West Sussex and Kent.

Not in Brighton? See every area we cover.