A GOVERNMENT watchdog has launched an investigation into whether the council put its staff at risk by failing to deal with asbestos at Waltham Forest Town Hall.
It was revealed last month that the authority has known about the presence of all three types of the cancer-causing toxic fibre – including its most dangerous 'blue' variety – in dust at the site's basement, in Forest Road, Walthamstow, since 1984.
Despite this the council continued to use the room to store thousands of important documents until the practice was finally stopped in January when the area was sealed off ahead of planned refurbishment works.
The authority insists that the levels of asbestos discovered at the town hall are “well within” government guidelines and said staff were at a low risk of exposure.
But campaigners are sceptical because the council also says it will need to destroy around 5,000 bags of potentially contaminated paperwork in the basement because they may be a health risk.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has now launched a probe to decide the matter, which will examine whether there has been a “failure to manage the control of asbestos” at the town hall.
A HSE spokeswoman said: “Unfortunately I can't say how long this will take but as there may have been a breach of health and safety regulations the matter is being taken seriously.”
Nick Tiratsoo, a community worker of Odessa Road in Leytonstone, has been trying without success to obtain copies of 2010 election expenses stored in the town hall basement.
He said: “I am very pleased that the HSE is going to investigate.
“In correspondence with us going back to January, the council has struggled to come up with a consistent story, but it has now admitted that successive surveys over a period of possibly 28 years have revealed blue asbestos dust to be present in the town hall basement – and that is deeply worrying for all concerned.”
A HSE investigation in 2010 found that the council had failed to properly monitor or manage asbestos in several schools.
A council spokesman said the authority was unable to comment while the investigation was on-going.
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