5th February 2020
Asbestos awareness training is helping keep visitors and contractors to London's Royal Parks safe
Ever wondered who has the job of ensuring that the 500+buildings in London’s Royal Parks are safe?
VINCI Facilities is the company tasked with the management of 11 Royal Parks in London. Combined, the Parks span more than 2,000 hectares and encompass over 500 buildings, including statues, monuments, playgrounds and offices.
From the cleaning and restoration of fountains and statues, to examining WW2 bunkers discovered in archaeological digs, VINCI Facilities has its work cut out maintaining the parks and ensuring continued safety for the millions of users each year.
As well as ensuring public safety, it is also a priority for VINCI Facilities to ensure contractor safety at the Royal Parks. Contractors are regularly on site managing and maintaining equipment in boiler rooms, public toilets and other park facility buildings.
Having such a diverse portfolio of building and monuments, and recognising the likelihood of the presence of asbestos in many of them, Neil Hibberd, Senior Facilities Manager at VINCI Facilities turned to Asbestos Training Limited (ATL).
Neil’s personal asbestos awareness stemmed from his former role as a Senior Contracts Manager at Kier Group. In his previous role he was responsible for construction and maintenance contracts within local authority, education and care home facilities. This gave Neil an important appreciation of asbestos awareness which he brought to his role at VINCI Facilities.
He explained: “Having dealt with care homes and other buildings with vulnerable people in my previous role, I know how important asbestos awareness is. With many of the buildings in and around the Royal Parks being pre-1990s, I knew it was crucial for me to know how to deal with asbestos safely and efficiently, so arranged to undertake the relevant training with ATL.”
Neil completed ATL’s three-day UKATA-approved Duty to Manage – Appointed Persons course, which was delivered by ATL’s Managing Director Graham O’Mahoney.
The course, which was also originally developed by Graham for the UK Asbestos Training association (UKATA), is designed for people who are responsible for asbestos containing materials in buildings which are defined within the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR), HSG 264 - Asbestos: The Survey Guide (HSG264) and HSG227.
The regulations require duty holders to identify the location and condition of asbestos in non-domestic premises and to manage the risk to prevent harm to anyone who works on the building or to building occupants.
Neil added: “Graham was a brilliant trainer and clearly knows a lot about the industry. It was a lot of information to process and could easily have been made very confusing, but he kept it clear, concise and interesting throughout the entire process.
“I now feel fully informed and confident in my knowledge of asbestos enabling me to help my team and contractors at the Parks deal with asbestos in the correct way.
“My job now is to make sure I pass the appropriate knowledge on to my five-strong team and ensure we continue to maintain safe environments for both workers and the public across London’s Royal Parks,” he added.
ATL’s Duty to Manage - Appointed Persons course is delivered at venues throughout the UK, in-house and at ATL’s head office in Fowlmere in Royston, Hertfordshire. To find out more, please get in touch with a member of the team here.