British Airways — Heathrow

The London Heathrow Operations Base is held by British Airways (BA), occupies an area of approximately 74 Hectares and is located on the east side of the airport complex. The current use of the base is for the client’s engineering planned and casualty maintenance facility, along with training and administrative functions.

In March 2018, Decontaminate secured the 3-year framework for asbestos removal, working alongside the client’s external consultants CBRE (maintenance), Turner & Townsend (commercial) and RPS (asbestos) to deliver the required planned, reactive and emergency works, with projects valued in accordance with the agreed schedule of rates, and delivered in accordance with site-specific KPI’s.

Since the commencement of the framework agreement, we have undertaken asbestos removal works throughout the operations base, within BA properties in close proximity to Heathrow and at Gatwick Airport. To date, works have ranged in complexity and size, and have included the ‘hand-picking’ of asbestos debris from contaminated soils, the removal of asbestos-based cladding, the removal of asbestos-lined doors and partitioning, the removal of pigeon guano, and the decontamination of high-level gantries with maintenance hangars.

We acted as principal contractor, and as such undertook all of the required PC duties most especially the safe integration and management of third-party contractors and their staff i.e. scaffold and access provision.

With the predominant asbestos removal works being within facilities that operate on a 24-hour basis, it’s incumbent upon us to ensure that we maintain extensive numbers of site-experienced personnel, and that in the event of an emergency we can have personnel, plant and materials on site within 2 hours of a call out.

The operations base and its location within the boundary of Heathrow Airport means that an extensive vetting system is in place to ensure that all persons able to access the facility are in possession of an ‘air-side’ security pass. Our staff was required to hold a security clearance that allowed them to work within security-sensitive environments.