{"id":1075814,"date":"2026-07-08T07:58:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T07:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1075814\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T07:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T07:58:41","slug":"hundreds-of-tonnes-of-asbestos-found-at-224-sites-across-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1075814\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of tonnes of asbestos found at 224 sites across Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of tonnes of asbestos have been found at 224 sites since 2018, with clean-up costs to the taxpayer of almost \u00a3400,000, it can be revealed.<\/p>\n

The Northern Ireland Environment<\/a> Agency has also confirmed that around 120 tonnes of asbestos remained at the controversial Meridi Street bonfire<\/a> site when it was lit last July. The presence of asbestos pre-dated the 2025 bonfire, with the NIEA and Belfast City Council aware of contamination on that site since at least 2011.<\/p>\n

Figures obtained by investigative website The Detail<\/a> through a freedom of information request covering January 2018 to January 2025 show this was not an isolated incident, with large amounts of asbestos found at sites across Northern Ireland in recent years.<\/p>\n

In some cases, the material remained on site for more than 12 months before being removed. Although the average removal time was 45 days, asbestos wasn\u2019t removed for three months in around 20 cases, and five locations were left contaminated for more than a year. A site in Camlough, County Armagh, was found to contain 30 tonnes of asbestos that took the NIEA eight months to remove, while six tonnes remained on a site in Coleraine, County Derry, for 16 months before removal.<\/p>\n

\"PSNI<\/a>\"Noah<\/a><\/p>\n

Any delays are significant because exposure to even a small amount of asbestos can have long-lasting effects on health, increasing the likelihood of developing a variety of cancers, according to the UK Health and Security Agency.<\/p>\n

In a handful of areas, NIEA was unable to specify whether asbestos had been officially removed from private sites.<\/p>\n

Almost half of all asbestos found in the period was in Mid Ulster, with 150 tonnes found at one site in Cookstown in June 2023. Lisburn and Castlereagh accounted for 19% of the total, followed by Newry Mourne and Down at 17%.<\/p>\n

A DAERA spokesman said: \u201cThere cannot be a single prescribed framework for the remediation of asbestos incidents. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency determines the most appropriate course of action based on the specific circumstances of each case, including the nature, extent and location of the asbestos contamination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Meridi Street site in the Village area of south Belfast <\/a>hit the headlines last summer when a bonfire was built on the land despite warnings that a significant amount of asbestos was present. The 120 tonnes removed after the 2025 bonfire is almost double the 66 tonnes cleaned from the site in 2011, when issues were first discovered.<\/p>\n

A NIEA spokesman said an active criminal investigation into the presence of asbestos on the Meridi site was opened in May 2025. <\/p>\n

Notices were subsequently served by NIEA on the landowner which resulted in the removal from the site of around 120 tonnes of asbestos following last year\u2019s bonfire, the agency said.<\/p>\n

However, an independent assessment sought by NIEA confirmed small fragments of asbestos-containing material remain on site.<\/p>\n

Belfast City Council<\/a> took enforcement action and ordered the then-owners to clear the asbestos. When this did not happen, the council hired its own contractors at a cost of just over \u00a3287,000. Fifteen years later, only half that money has been recouped.<\/p>\n

A council spokesman said: \u201cThere were two separate charges on the land of \u00a3143,750.43, one for each owner. One was discharged in 2017. The second part of the land has changed ownership. On this, the statutory charge remains in place, and we hope to recover it from the landowners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NIEA said an active criminal investigation into the Meridi site was opened in May 2025. Notices were served on the landowner resulting in the removal of around 120 tonnes of asbestos, though an independent assessment confirmed small fragments of asbestos-containing material remain on site.<\/p>\n

When questioned on the protracted history of removing asbestos from Meridi Street, the NIEA said: \u201cAll situations are different. Removal of asbestos is a highly specialised, complex, and sensitive process and the site had to be fully vacated and secured before work could proceed. The circumstances between May and July 2025 meant it was not possible to conduct a full remediation of the site as it could not be secured to allow for this to be completed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of tonnes of asbestos have been found at 224 sites since 2018, with clean-up costs to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1075815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[43957,728,33298,13975,1144,133077,16,15],"class_list":["post-1075814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-bonfire","tag-environment","tag-environmental-health","tag-health-and-wellbeing","tag-northern-ireland","tag-south-belfast","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116883301457912547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1075815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}