Ipswich Borough Council approves procurement of £1.1 million asbestos removal contract

Ipswich Borough Council approved the procurement of a £1.1 million asbestos removal contract during an executive meeting on Tuesday, August 8.

The procurement seeks to replace the existing contract which, despite not expiring until April 2024, will reach its value limit sooner than expected.

This comes at a time when a lot of work is expected to be done on asbestos-containing material within the council’s housing stock.

Cllr Alasdair Ross, the portfolio holder for housing, urged the executive to agree to have the procurement held on an open tender basis.

This means the contract notices will be published on a variety of platforms, giving an opportunity for multiple tenders to make a bid, and ensuring the council gets best value for their money.

Cllr Ross said: “We know we will actually have quite a bit of asbestos to remove in the next few years.

“It will give us the flexibility needed to ensure that we can carry out that work when we need to.”

The new contract will last for a total of three years with the option to extend to a fourth on the basis of performance.

Having been used for decades as a popular construction material for insulation, due to being extremely effective and cheap, asbestos is still common in homes across the UK.

Working on it, however, results in breathing asbestos fibres, which have been linked to several diseases such as lung cancer.

During the Tuesday Q&A part of the debate, Cllr Ian Fisher, the only Conservative on the executive, asked for how long asbestos removal would be a problem.

Cllr Ross said: “We know how many bits of asbestos will be removed over the next ten or so years. But we are aware that at times repair might require us to remove asbestos that we hadn’t got planned.”

The need for a specialist, licensed contractor to work on the material makes its removal expensive, but needed in order to manage the risks associated with asbestos within the council’s property estate.