Author of JIWGs industry guidance on the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 for soil and C&D materials, CAR-SOIL, Stephen Forster announced to speak at this year’s Asbestos The Truth Conference.

Taking place in Birmingham on the 2nd November 2016, Asbestos The Truth Conference is the UK’s only Asbestos event that connects industry professionals to network, learn about changes to legislation and discover new solutions to support them in their roles.

In the seminar 'Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012: Interpretation for Managing and Working with Asbestos in Soil and Construction & Demolition materials: Industry Guidance' Stephen will provide an overview of the requirements of CAR 2012, HSE ACoP and guidance L143, in the context of the new industry guidance set out in CAR-SOIL. The Health and Safety Executive provided support to the JIWG in producing this guidance, which is aimed at improvements within the brownfield and contaminated land industry.

This session is designed to support the knowledge of environmental and construction professionals engaged in investigating, assessing, remediating and developing sites that are contaminated with asbestos.

Stephen Forster has over 28 years of experience in all aspects of the investigation, assessment and management of asbestos and contaminated land in various roles.

He is Chair (2011 to present) of the Joint Industry Working Group on Asbestos in Soil and Construction and Demolition Material, with responsibility for leading a broad cross-sectoral initiative to promote and guide the development and implementation of UK non-statutory industry guidance for the investigation, analysis, assessment, remediation and management of asbestos in soils.

In addition, he was co-developer of a unique qualitative Decision Support Tool, designed to be compatible with the JIWGs CAR-SOIL guidance, which allows users to model the nature and degree of asbestos contamination of ground materials in order to determine the hazard and exposure ranking and likely licensing status of work carried out on those materials.

As part of the JIWGs work, he is currently working in conjunction with the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency reviewing (and revising) regulatory guidance on the classification of asbestos-contaminated soil and demolition arisings.