Charity walk marks the ongoing impact of asbestos on Merseyside

A walk raising awareness of asbestos related diseases has seen charities and lawyers campaigning for justice come together to highlight the ongoing suffering caused by the substance.  

Members of the Liverpool based asbestos team at law firm Leigh Day met with volunteers from the Cheshire and Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Groups on walks through Runcorn and Liverpool, following the routes that asbestos took from docks to factories. 

Raw asbestos materials arrived at dockyards in Liverpool throughout the 20th century and were transported to sites across the region, both by land and along the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal for use in factories across Northern England.  

It is estimated that more than six million tonnes of asbestos arrived in the UK between 1900 and 1999, when asbestos was eventually banned in the country, with a significant amount imported via the docks in Liverpool. In 1997, more than 55% of all asbestos imports to the UK were calculated to have entered the country through the Port of Liverpool. 

Thousands of people were exposed to the substance across various phases of its journey – including those unpacking and transporting the materials from dockyards, as well as people in factories either working directly with asbestos or in workplaces where it was present. 

Examples include T&N’s asbestos cement factory in Widnes, which manufactured asbestos corrugated cement sheeting and asbestos rainwater goods, and ICI sites in Runcorn and Cheshire which had asbestos lagged pipes running through the buildings. Many of the asbestos products were then exported back out of the country via the Liverpool ports. 

Leigh Day lawyers based at offices on Old Hall Street and volunteers from the Cheshire Asbestos Victims Support Group (CAVSG) met in Runcorn on 15 July, making their way through the town along the Manchester Ship Canal to Wigg Island nature reserve, the site of a former ICI chemical factory.  

In Liverpool, the team were joined by victims' families and members of the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group (MAVSG) and followed the River Mersey from Otterspool Promenade to the Liver Building.  

The route took the group past Cammell Laird shipbuilders, another site where people were exposed to asbestos, before passing the Liverpool Docks, where asbestos came into the country from Canada and South Africa. 

As well as completing the walk, the Leigh Day asbestos team has made donations to both asbestos support groups and continues to work closely with the charities, which provide vital support in the Cheshire and Merseyside areas for those who have been impacted by diseases caused by asbestos exposure.  

The Liverpool and Runcorn routes made up a series of walks organised by Leigh Day asbestos lawyers across the country to raise awareness of the impact of asbestos. 

Joanne Candlish, a partner in the asbestos team based in Leigh Day’s Liverpool office, said:  

“Asbestos has been the cause of suffering not only in the Cheshire and Merseyside areas, but across the whole country. The diseases caused by exposure to the material are truly awful, and often have no known cure. The work done by asbestos charities such as the Cheshire and Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Groups is hugely important in supporting those who have been impacted, and we were delighted to have teamed up with them in an effort to help spread awareness.”