Asbestos Removal in Leeds and West Yorkshire

This page lists every firm the HSE currently licenses in West Yorkshire for asbestos removal. Leeds City Council keeps an asbestos store at the Kirkstall waste transfer station and will take wrapped waste off a Leeds householder who has booked a slot. Staff there will not tell you what the material is, and they will not take a trader’s load.

Swipe the table on a phone. Bradford and Batley firms on this list routinely work in Leeds.

10 of the 11 hold a standard licence, which is the one that covers removal. The rest are on the register with a narrower type. The Type column is there so you do not ring the wrong one.

How to read the licensed contractor list

Every company below holds a current Health and Safety Executive licence against a West Yorkshire address. Number, type and expiry are read straight off the register each day.

• Watch the expiry dates. None of the West Yorkshire firms hold a licence expiring in the next 6 weeks. A close date is worth one question on the phone, not a reason to cross a firm off.
• Watch the type. One firm here holds a maintenance licence rather than a standard one: Thermac (Hire) Limited in Leeds. A maintenance licence is narrower, covering short duration maintenance rather than full removal, so ask directly whether your job falls inside it.

The Kirkstall tip will take asbestos waste, but they will not remove it

Leeds City Council runs an asbestos store at the Kirkstall waste transfer station on Evanston Avenue, LS4 2HR, which locals just call the tip. Householders in the Leeds area can book a slot by emailing asbestos@leeds.gov.uk. Traders cannot use it. Neither can anyone from outside Leeds.

That is a disposal service. The council says so itself: no testing, no surveys, no removal, and staff will not help you unload. You book at least 48 hours ahead, you wrap the load yourself in heavy polythene (they specify 1000 gauge, double wrapped, taped), you pay by card on the weighbridge, and if the wrapping is wrong they turn you away. Current prices sit on the council’s own asbestos disposal page. Use theirs, not a screenshot of ours, because the fees move.

Kirkstall works when the material has already been identified, there is not much of it, and the waste is yours. It is the wrong first move if nobody has tested it, if it turns out to be insulating board, or if a builder has already put a bar through it.

Where asbestos turns up in Leeds houses

Leeds still has a lot of older housing, which is where asbestos usually sits. The back-to-backs in Holbeck, Beeston, Harehills and Armley share walls and roofs, so work on one house can affect the one attached to it. Plenty of those houses were repaired between the 1950s and the 1980s with board and Artex, and that is often what people are looking at now.

Houses built or refurbished between the 1950s and 1980s in Seacroft, Gipton, Middleton, Belle Isle and Halton Moor often have cement garage roofs, soffits, gutters and old kitchen floor tiles. The same materials turn up in Horsforth, Pudsey, Morley, Rothwell and the older semis towards Roundhay and Moortown. Artex in a bedroom is a common one.

Leeds City Council tenants should not start here. Housing Leeds surveys its own stock before major work, so the first call is your housing office and it costs you nothing. This page is for owner-occupiers, landlords, and anyone whose builder has just downed tools.

Armley is not just old talk. J.W. Roberts made asbestos insulation there for decades, the dust carried into the streets around the works, and people who never worked a day inside it died of mesothelioma. June Hancock took Turner & Newall to court over it in 1995 and won. That is why older Leeds residents take the word seriously, and it is still no help at all in identifying the board in your utility room. That needs a laboratory.

Not every job needs a licensed firm

The law splits asbestos work three ways, which is why Leeds is full of vans offering asbestos removal with no HSE licence on the door.

• Licensed work. Sprayed coating, pipe and boiler lagging, and insulating board where the job is more than short and minor. A firm from the table above, and nobody else.
• Notifiable non-licensed work. No licence required, but the HSE has to be told before it starts and health records kept afterwards.
• Non-licensed work. Cement sheet in sound condition. Garage roofs, gutters, soffits, a cold water tank in a loft.

Nothing belongs in one of those three groups until it has been identified. Cement sheet and insulating board look alike in a phone photograph. One can go to Kirkstall if you took it off yourself. The other cannot go anywhere without a licensed firm.

Yorkshire sits above the national mesothelioma rate

Above Great Britain as a whole. The regional figure takes in the Humber ports and shipyards as well as West Yorkshire engineering and textiles.

The risk has shifted. The HSE says the highest risk today sits with people who worked in construction while asbestos was in use. In Leeds that means back to backs, post-war housing and anything refitted during the asbestos decades.

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

What asbestos removal costs in Leeds

There is no single Leeds figure worth quoting. A garage roof lifted in an afternoon and lagging stripped out of a cellar are different jobs at different prices. Kirkstall charges by weight, and only for waste you have already taken off and wrapped. A contractor’s quote covers the labour, the HSE notification where the job needs one, and the consignment paperwork. Ask which of those three the number includes.

Questions about asbestos removal in Leeds

Can I take a garage roof to Kirkstall myself?

Only if you are a Leeds householder, the material is a type you are allowed to handle, it is wrapped to their rules, and you have a booked slot. They will not advise you on whether it is safe to take off. If it turns out to be insulating board, Kirkstall is not the answer.

When was asbestos banned in the UK?

Blue and brown went in 1985, white in 1999. Any Leeds house built or refitted before 2000 can hold it, which is nearly everything outside the newer riverside flats.

Why so few companies on the list?

Because the licence is hard to get and hard to keep. There are 362 in the whole United Kingdom. 11 in West Yorkshire is a normal share. Look at Sheffield and South Yorkshire and York and North Yorkshire as well if you want a wider net. Those firms travel.

Getting a quote from a Leeds contractor

Ring any firm in the table. Those are the numbers on the HSE register, not numbers anyone has paid us to show you.

Not in West Yorkshire? See all areas we cover.