An insurer or a client has asked
A policy renewal, a tender or a managing agent has asked for your Legionella risk assessment and you either do not have one or it is years old.
A Legionella risk assessment to ACOP L8: a survey of every water system on the premises, temperatures profiled, dead legs found, and a written control scheme that says who does what and how often.
Twenty minutes, no charge. Or call 07949 084819.
Written to L8 and HSG274
Consultants in Cheshire and the West Midlands
Professional indemnity insured
Who this is for
Most Legionella enquiries arrive for one of three reasons. If you recognise yours here, the Greenlight Call will tell you what you need and roughly what it will cost.
A policy renewal, a tender or a managing agent has asked for your Legionella risk assessment and you either do not have one or it is years old.
A closure, a partial shutdown or a wing nobody has used. Stagnant water is exactly the condition L8 is written about, and it triggers a review.
Somebody is taking water samples and nobody has ever written the risk assessment those samples are supposed to be monitoring against.
What you get
The report names the systems, rates the risk on each, and where the risk warrants it sets out a written scheme of control with monitoring frequencies and responsible people.
Does it apply to us
The test is whether you have control of the premises or the water system, not whether you own the building. Landlords, facilities managers, managing agents and maintenance contractors all fall in scope. These are the systems we assess.
Common in care homes, hotels and guest houses, HMOs and residential blocks, leisure centres and pools, dental practices, schools, offices with stored water, and industrial sites with cooling towers or process water. Not sure whether it applies? Say so on the Greenlight Call.
How it works
The same sequence whether it is a single hot and cold water system or a multi-building estate with cooling towers.
Twenty minutes on the phone to scope the premises, the water systems and who occupies the building.
Confirmed in writing, with the turnaround date, before anyone comes to site.
Systems surveyed, temperatures profiled, outlets checked and records reviewed.
We walk you through the findings and what to tackle first, in what order, by when.
What it costs
£450 to £1,800
Depending on the number and complexity of the water systems and the size of the premises. A simple hot and cold water system in a small building sits at the bottom of that range, a multi-system site with cooling towers at the top. That range is published so you can budget before you enquire. Multi-site discounts are available. Scope, fixed price and turnaround date are agreed in writing after the Greenlight Call and before anyone comes to site.
How the work is delivered
York Green does not sell water treatment, dosing or sampling contracts, so the assessment has nothing to recommend itself into. Findings are driven by the risk, not by what we could sell you afterwards.
Independent of the remedial market. If your existing controls are adequate, the report will say so.
Every report is reviewed and signed off by a Chartered practitioner before it reaches you.
Facilities managers, landlords and maintenance teams, in plain English with the actions ranked.
Reports and control schemes meet the documentation L8 expects, so your compliance file stands up.
What this assessment is written to
Assessments are carried out by professionally qualified assessors and technically reviewed before the report reaches you. Water hygiene sits inside Environmental Health, and that is the discipline our assessors are trained in. We are a safety consultancy, not a water treatment company with a risk assessment bolted on. Registrations and CVs are available on request.
Proof
Straight answers
Yes. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the COSHH Regulations 2002, employers and those in control of premises have a duty to identify and manage the risk from Legionella. HSE Approved Code of Practice L8 sets out what that means in practice, including a documented risk assessment carried out by a competent person. L8 has a special legal status: it is not legislation itself, but failure to follow it can be used as evidence of non-compliance in enforcement proceedings.
Anyone responsible for premises with a water system that could create a risk. Commercial and residential landlords, particularly with HMOs or communal hot water. Hotels and guest houses. Care homes and healthcare premises. Leisure centres and pools. Industrial sites with cooling towers or process water. Offices and multi-tenancy buildings. Dental practices. Food production and hospitality. The duty is not limited to large organisations, and it follows control of the system rather than ownership of the building.
They answer different questions. The risk assessment asks whether conditions exist that would let the bacteria grow and spread: temperature, stagnation, nutrients such as scale and biofilm, and how close the system is to people who would be badly affected. Testing, or water sampling, asks whether bacteria are present at one moment in time. L8 requires the assessment as the foundation. Sampling is a monitoring activity that may sit inside your control scheme, particularly for cooling towers, but it does not replace the assessment. York Green carries out assessments. Sampling and laboratory analysis is done by accredited laboratories and arranged separately.
Where the assessment finds a significant risk, L8 requires a written scheme setting out the control measures, the monitoring required, how often, who is responsible and when it gets reviewed. It is sometimes called a water safety plan. For lower-risk premises where the existing controls are already adequate, documenting the assessment and confirming those controls can be enough. The report says which of those two you are in and why.
L8 sets no fixed interval but requires the assessment to be kept current. A review is needed when the system is modified or extended, when the use or occupancy of the building changes, when controls turn out to be inadequate, after a confirmed case or a positive detection, and after any period of closure or shutdown. As good practice many premises review every two years, and higher-risk systems such as cooling towers more often as part of ongoing monitoring.
The published range is £450 to £1,800, set by the number of water systems, outlets and buildings. A small office with one hot and cold water system sits at the bottom of the range; a site with cooling towers, several calorifiers or multiple buildings at the top. The fixed price is confirmed in writing after the Greenlight Call. The assessment is independent of water treatment, so there is no supplier product behind the recommendations.
L8 requires a competent person: someone with the knowledge, experience and skill to assess the type of water system in front of them. That means understanding L8 and HSG274, knowing how water systems are designed and operated, understanding the conditions that let the bacteria grow, and being able to specify the right controls and monitoring. Qualifications alone do not demonstrate it. Practical familiarity with the specific system type matters, and for cooling towers it matters a great deal.
York Green's consultants are based in Cheshire and in Shropshire and the West Midlands, and the regular patch is the Midlands, the North West, Yorkshire and North Wales: roughly everywhere within two hours' drive of a consultant, from Hereford and Coventry in the south to Preston, Leeds and Doncaster in the north. Sites beyond that are taken on where the work justifies the travel, and the method and the technical sign-off are the same wherever the site is. Wherever the site is, the price quoted after the Greenlight Call is the price.
Next step
Five boxes, about a minute. Every enquiry is read by a consultant rather than a call centre, and we come back to you within one working day with a scope and a fixed price. If the honest answer is that you do not need what you are asking for, we will tell you that instead of quoting for it.
Would rather talk now? Call 07949 084819 or email enquiries@yorkgreen.uk.
We reply within one working day.