Oceanic House

Located just off Trafalgar Square, Oceanic House is a prestigious Grade II listed building which was designed by Henry Tanner Junior and was originally the London headquarters of the White Star Line from which tickets for the RMS Titanic were sold.

It later became a Barclays Bank, was also used by the British Ministry of Defence and became the Texas Embassy Cantina restaurant which later closed.

With asbestos present within the clinker/floor construction throughout the building, work involved removing entire floors and walls along with pockets from within the masonry whilst ensuring that the structural stability of the building was maintained.

Access around the site was heavily restricted making it necessary for the decontamination units to be sited on a high-level gantry.

Other challenges included the development of innovative material handling safe systems of work to reduce manual handling (in excess of 1,250 tons of asbestos-contaminated waste removed) and the requirement to introduce additional layers of bagging of waste — due to the nature of the waste material being removed, to further minimise risk during waste transit procedures.