case study

St John’s Shopping Centre, Liverpool 

PROJECT VALUE: £150,000

DURATION:   Intermittent over 4 years 

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 The largest indoor shopping centre in Liverpool city centre is home to over 100 retailers. The site also hosts The St John’s Beacon, the second tallest building in Liverpool which hosts Radio City. With the roof-top antenna it makes it the tallest structure in Liverpool. The 360,000 ft2 complex was opened in 1969, when asbestos was being used regularly in the construction industry for buildings such as St John’s. 

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Emchia are the preferred licensed asbestos contractor, having completed over £150,000 worth of projects at the site over the past 4 years. We have removed various asbestos materials including asbestos insulating board and AIB debris to ceiling voids, thermal insulation residues, thermal insulation to pipework and asbestos sprayed coating to beams and ceilings. 

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We recently undertook a project in a large former stationery store after a retailer had vacated, which included the removal of asbestos sprayed coatings to the ceilings and beams, and debris within the ceiling void. Emchia’s Managing Director Luke Gumbley planned the project with the shopping centre’s management team, and the works were completed over a period of 7 weeks. Injection machines were used to inject fibre suppressant and water into the coating, before it was then scraped and cleaned by our specialist team. The works were carried out under fully controlled conditions with negative air pressure to our designed enclosure, continuous air monitoring by an independent UKAS accredited analyst, and specialist equipment for removal and decontamination processes in place. 

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The project had it’s difficulties with working in a live building around the public, working at height, live services and the high-risk types of asbestos present to the ceilings. We also had restrictions with transferring waste to the skip which was kept in the basement area. Our team successfully delivered the project safely and on time, despite these challenges, and with an unplanned audit from ARCA which passed with flying colours.