Thousands of tradesmen are to get free asbestos awareness training in a bid to tackle ignorance about Britain's biggest industrial killer.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), in partnership with industry, set a poignant target of 4000 hours of face-to-face training to be donated during September - one hour for each life lost to asbestos related illnesses in an average year. A target for a further 4000 hours of online training was also set.

But thanks to an overwhelming response from training companies, the target has been smashed by more than 50 per cent - and more than 4,000 at-risk tradesmen will now be able to take up the offer of free training.

7987 hours of classroom training have been offered up along with 5570 web-based hours, which includes courses in Romanian, Russian and Polish - equating to training for 4020 tradesmen.

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The free training is available throughout October and November and is aimed at those most likely to disturb the asbestos fibres as they go about their work - tradesmen such as joiners, electricians and plumbers , around 20 of whom lose their lives to asbestos-related diseases every week.

The asbestos training pledge initiative is part of HSE's Hidden Killer campaign to raise awareness that asbestos is not just an historical problem - around half a million non-domestic premises still contain it.

Said Karen Clayton, HSE's director for long latency health risks: "This training will save lives by helping to tackle ignorance about the risks posed by working with asbestos. It will help prevent this hidden killer from claiming another generation of British tradesmen.

"The response has been overwhelming and has completely exceeded our expectations. There's been a real groundswell of support from a whole range of training providers.

"We expect demand for the courses to high and urge tradesmen to go to www.hse.gov.uk and get signed up now. A few hours in a classroom or in front of a computer could add decades to someone's lives. The courses literally could be a life saver."

(CD/GK)