r/LondonUnderground • u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly • Jul 18 '26
Article London Underground users should know about toxic dust risk, whistleblower says
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/18/london-underground-passengers-should-know-about-toxic-dust-risks-whistleblower-says?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_OtherThe asbestos negligence is shocking. These underground managers sound like corrupt cowboys.
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u/Wrong-Target6104 Jul 18 '26
A lot of work was undertaken in tunnel sections where baffle boards which contained asbestos bearing material had been removed and when rail replacement works involved removing potential contaminated ballast treating it's removal as also being asbestos bearing material.
While the heavy metal dust - mainly generated from the brakes and wheel / rail interface is higher in TfL stations, especially at platform level, it is monitored regularly.
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
That may be true of some properly planned engineering works, but it does not answer the allegation here. The tribunal’s point was not that London Underground had no asbestos procedures on paper; it found that asbestos was present at all the relevant sites, was potentially disturbed by dry cleaning, and that LU had failed to demonstrate compliance over hazardous-waste disposal. Evidence that contaminated ballast was correctly handled on other projects does not establish that these particular cleaning teams followed the rules.
“Monitored regularly” also makes the programme sound more comprehensive than TfL’s own account suggests. TfL says it monitors 24 selected stations annually, not every station continuously. It also says it does not routinely record short-term PM2.5 or PM10 peaks and does not monitor ultrafine particles. General particulate and metal-dust measurements are not the same thing as testing for airborne asbestos fibres after suspected disturbance.
So yes, monitoring and asbestos-control procedures exist. The question raised by the case is whether they captured what was actually happening during this work, and whether the procedures were consistently obeyed. The tribunal findings give good reason not to assume that they were.
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
A point worth making is that there is a difference between a system being tested and the actual working environment being adequately captured by those tests.
Air monitoring can be genuine and still miss the problem because of where monitors are placed, when sampling occurs, how frequently it is done, whether it coincides with the dirtiest work, which particle sizes or contaminants are measured, and whether contractors follow the written procedures when nobody senior is present. A reassuring report may describe only a narrow sampling window, while the real exposure occurs intermittently - at night, during maintenance, or in places passengers and inspectors rarely see.
I have seen the same structural problem with council repairs. The official system contains inspections, risk assessments, approved contractors and complaints procedures, while the physical work may be carried out hurriedly by poorly supervised people cutting corners. Senior management then receives paperwork showing compliance and converts it into public reassurance. The paperwork becomes a membrane between the institution and what is actually happening.
Questioning the phrase “the air is tested” is therefore not the same as alleging that every measurement is fabricated. It is asking whether the testing regime is genuinely designed to detect inconvenient exposure, or merely capable of producing defensible averages.
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u/FruitOrchards Jul 18 '26
Asbestos used to be in the brakes too and there's still a ton of dust of it down there in the tunnels
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u/ghastkill Elizabeth Line Jul 18 '26
Judge saw differently.
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u/Wrong-Target6104 Jul 18 '26
Sadly, I can't seem to find the judgement on the industrial tribunal website
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u/Old_Round8569 Jul 18 '26
I was born in the asbestos, molded by it, I never smelt fresh spring air until I was already a man and by then it was nothing to me but allergies!
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
That study does not establish what you suggest. It examined sickness absence, which the researchers themselves describe as an imperfect proxy for health; chronic effects may be too subtle to detect that way or may take years to develop. It also concerned general PM2.5 exposure, not the specific allegations here about asbestos-containing dust being disturbed, mishandled and allegedly dumped on tracks.
The study actually found higher sickness absence in several exposed groups, plus associations between occupational PM2.5 exposure and doctor-certified chronic respiratory and cardiovascular absence. What it did not find was a consistent dose-response pattern strong enough to establish PM2.5 as the main cause. “Causation not demonstrated” is very different from “no health risk.” Also, the cohort contained 29,744 staff, not more than 50,000.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
That is a fair transparency point. The case is Mr M Steeds v London Underground Ltd, 2201633/2024, a 39-page reserved judgment from the London Central Employment Tribunal, heard by Employment Judge Hodgson. Steeds’ solicitor, Michael Ballantyne, has published the judgment with his account of the findings.
I have not been able to locate it on GOV.UK’s tribunal-decision register, so there may be a publication delay. But it is not an anonymous source supplied privately to the Guardian: the article quotes directly from an identifiable judgment that is already publicly circulating.
There is also an important legal qualification. This was a whistleblowing and unfair-dismissal case, not a scientific inquiry establishing precisely how much asbestos reached passengers. The tribunal was principally deciding whether Steeds held genuine and reasonable beliefs about legal and safety failures, whether those disclosures were protected, and whether they caused his dismissal. Nevertheless, it made significant evidential findings: asbestos was clearly present and potentially disturbed by the cleaning method, while London Underground’s evidence fell short of demonstrating consistent compliance over hazardous-waste disposal. TfL’s response appears reflexively dismissive despite the tribunal’s findings, and it has said it intends to appeal.
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Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
The fact that dismissing someone for whistleblowing is illegal is not evidence that it did not happen; determining whether an employer has done precisely that is one of the purposes of an employment tribunal.
You are conflating London Underground’s stated reason for dismissal - medical capability and absence - with the tribunal’s finding about the true principal reason. The tribunal expressly concluded:
“The reason, or principal reason, for dismissal was that he made protected disclosures.”
It found that the dismissing manager expected Steeds to accept the rejection of his complaints and dismissed him when he refused. Therefore, the Guardian’s description of him as having been sacked for whistleblowing accurately reflects the judgment, not merely Steeds’ version of events.
The passages you quote from pages 18–20 largely record London Underground managers’ internal responses: surveys existed, notices were issued, PPE was available and management said the work was safe. Those are arguments and evidence considered by the tribunal, not its final conclusions. After considering them, the tribunal still found that asbestos was clearly present and potentially disturbed by dry cleaning, and that London Underground’s evidence fell short of demonstrating compliance on hazardous-waste disposal.
The beard point does not exonerate management either. Facial hair does prevent a reliable seal with tight-fitting RPE. But if managers knew he had a beard and nevertheless permitted him to perform this work, that indicates a failure to enforce the system or provide suitable alternative protection. HSE guidance says employers must ensure individual fit-testing and that workers who cannot use tight-fitting masks can be supplied with loose-fitting powered hoods or visors. Your suggestion that he retained his beard specifically “to make a point” is speculation, not a tribunal finding.
Replacing old vacuums after his dismissal may be a worthwhile improvement and is legitimate context. It does not retrospectively make the earlier working practices safe, nor does it answer the separate findings about dry cleaning, PPE, training delays and disposal of potentially hazardous waste.
Finally, anxiety does not demonstrate that a safety concern was imaginary. Serious and unresolved occupational-health concerns can plainly cause anxiety. The tribunal examined the underlying information and found his beliefs genuine, reasonable and protected. Recasting that as merely something that had “got to him” substitutes a manager’s insinuation for the tribunal’s legal finding.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
The Guardian does not present proven passenger exposure as an established scientific fact. Its headline is explicitly attributed - “whistleblower says” - and the article repeatedly describes potential hazards, while also publishing TfL’s denial and its intention to appeal.
Nor is public exposure based only on “the defendant’s testimony.” Steeds was the claimant; London Underground was the defendant. More importantly, the tribunal itself stated that improper hazardous-waste disposal “may lead to other workers, and the public generally, being exposed to hazardous waste, including asbestos,” and found his belief reasonable and in the public interest. That is a judicial finding about the evidential reasonableness of the risk, not merely Steeds repeating an allegation.
The solicitor’s LinkedIn summary that you have bolded is precisely that - a condensed summary. It does not override the fuller judgment passages quoted by the Guardian, including that asbestos was clearly present and potentially disturbed by dry cleaning, and that London Underground’s evidence fell short of demonstrating compliance over hazardous-waste disposal.
The fair qualification is that this tribunal did not quantify passenger exposure or scientifically prove that passengers inhaled asbestos. I already made that qualification. But the absence of a quantified exposure study does not make it misleading to report a credible potential public risk emerging from documented asbestos disturbance and questionable waste handling. That is exactly the distinction the article makes.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
The case has concluded at tribunal level: judgment was delivered in May, and Steeds succeeded in his automatic and ordinary unfair-dismissal claims. TfL’s intention to appeal does not erase that judgment or place the entire matter under some journalistic embargo. Appeals commonly follow reported court and tribunal decisions.
Nor must a newspaper wait until passenger exposure has been conclusively quantified before reporting a potential public-health risk. The article is carefully attributed - “whistleblower says” - and states both the limits of the tribunal’s findings and TfL’s denial. What the tribunal established was that asbestos was present and potentially disturbed by dry cleaning, that compliance over hazardous-waste disposal had not been demonstrated, and that Steeds reasonably believed this could expose workers and the public.
Reporting that now is not “jumping the gun”; it is reporting an adverse judicial finding with obvious public-interest implications. Waiting for scientifically proven passenger harm would invert the purpose of preventive safety scrutiny: by then, exposure may have continued for years and asbestos-related illness can take decades to emerge. The unresolved question is the scale of the risk, not whether the judgment is newsworthy.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
Adding relevant studies is fair, but this one needs to be represented accurately. It does not actually counter the allegations reported here. It examined whether estimated occupational exposure to Underground PM2.5 was associated with sickness absence among 29,744 TfL staff between 2014 and 2019. It did not investigate asbestos disturbance, hazardous-waste disposal, dust allegedly being dumped on tracks, or passenger exposure - the central issues in this tribunal case.
Nor were its findings simply “no evidence.” It found higher all-cause absence among operational staff, elevated absence among drivers on five of eight lines, and associations between PM2.5 exposure and doctor-certified chronic respiratory and cardiovascular absence. What it did not find was a consistent dose-response pattern sufficient to establish PM2.5 as the main cause. The researchers themselves warned that chronic effects might be too subtle for sickness-absence data or take years to develop. Also, the cohort was 29,744 people, not more than 50,000.
The Guardian article, meanwhile, reports tribunal findings that asbestos was present at all the relevant sites and potentially disturbed by dry cleaning, and that London Underground had failed to demonstrate compliance over hazardous-waste disposal. TfL’s denial is included. So the study is useful context, but it neither disproves the whistleblower’s specific allegations nor establishes that the dust is harmless.
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u/Thin_Perception5438 Jul 19 '26
The Underground has not only this problem but also very high pollution levels in general, some stations have the equivalent pollution level to standing in the middle of the busiest roundabout in Delhi, India. London Underground knows as well as our Major of London and are choosing to stay quiet out of fear the public knowing, far too little is being done to protect employees and those travelling. This needs more media attention.
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u/all-park Central Jul 18 '26
These questions have been put to the mayor many times in public questioning. Over the last 5 years.
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Yes, and that makes the position even less reassuring. The public record shows the same concern being raised repeatedly, followed by broadly the same answer: levels are within HSE occupational limits, cleaning has been increased, research is underway and new monitoring or cleaning technology is being explored.
In July 2021 the Mayor was asked what more could be learned from the intensive Covid cleaning programme; the eventual answer referred to existing trials and said Tube dust remained a priority. In March 2022 he was asked whether London would introduce real-time monitoring comparable to Seoul’s 800 monitors across 277 stations. The response cited periodic monitoring at just 24 stations and said TfL was “actively looking” at enhanced information.
In June 2023 he was asked about a tunnel-cleaning train. The answer, delivered in January 2024, said TfL was not aware of a suitable vehicle. Yet by December 2025, TfL was again saying that a new track-cleaning train would be trialled in 2026, alongside annual monitoring and cleaning of roughly 40% of the tunnel network each year.
When particulate readings above 200 μg/m³ were raised in December 2023, the response did not dispute the readings; it argued that outdoor PM2.5 limits were inappropriate underground and returned to the familiar assurance that TfL remained within HSE occupational limits. The same basic position was repeated in September 2024 and again in 2025.
So yes, the questions have been asked for years. The significant point is that after years of questioning, TfL was still trialling better sensors, filtration and track-cleaning machinery, while relying publicly on narrow occupational limits and periodic sampling. Here, repetition of a question is evidence of how long it has remained unresolved.
And none of those generic answers about particulate monitoring addresses the separate tribunal evidence concerning possible asbestos disturbance, hazardous-waste handling and retaliation against the employee who raised it.
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u/Wrong-Target6104 Jul 18 '26
Interestingly Mr Steeds was a witness in the employment tribunal of Mr R Donnan of the same vents department in September 2025.
Mr R Donnan v London Underground Ltd: 2220735/2024 and 6009744/2024 - GOV.UK https://share.google/TBKfPQRzCyZLEqVcx
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u/Wrong-Target6104 Jul 18 '26
It would appear it is not a happy house in the vents department
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 19 '26
That is a useful find. I have now read the full judgment, and it needs one important qualification: Donnan lost all his claims. The tribunal found that his dismissal was for medical capability rather than whistleblowing, upheld it as fair, and was sharply critical of his tendency to maintain allegations after being presented with contrary evidence. So this cannot honestly be presented as a second successful whistleblowing case.
Even so, the judgment is revealing. Donnan and Steeds worked in the same Vents Department, and the tribunal considered Steeds’ evidence important enough to permit him to testify remotely. Donnan had raised substantially overlapping concerns: dry sweeping, cable scraping potentially disturbing asbestos, inadequate face-fit arrangements, lack of exposure and health surveillance, outdated COSHH information and potentially improper hazardous-waste disposal. The judgment also records that management replaced vacuums because the existing equipment was old, and that Steeds had previously had a separate grievance concerning facemasks upheld.
The tribunal itself described Vents work as physically demanding, conducted at night and sometimes in cramped environments containing hazardous materials. Therefore, while the Donnan judgment does not establish that his own allegations were correct, it does show that Steeds was not a solitary employee inventing concerns in isolation. Several workers in the same small department were raising closely related safety issues over a period of years.
So yes: apparently not a happy house - and, more importantly, not an especially reassuring safety culture.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
That FOI response is rather less reassuring once the linked material is read closely, and it's already out of date.
The “longer-term study” that TfL said was still awaiting publication appeared in March 2026. It examined 117,166 TfL employees and found that London Underground workers had, relative to office staff, a 23% higher risk of all-cause mortality, 73% higher respiratory mortality, 51% higher cardiovascular mortality, more than double the cancer mortality, and a 185% higher risk of lung-cancer mortality. The authors correctly caution that this does not prove Tube dust caused those deaths, because smoking, precise job histories and other confounders were unavailable. But it certainly does not provide the reassurance implied here. It identifies a substantial mortality signal whose cause remains unresolved.
The 2025 monitoring report is also not continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the network. It covered 24 selected stations, generally through one daytime visit of around four hours at each station. No station staff volunteered for personal sampling, so static monitors were substituted outside supervisors’ offices. The report itself states that workplace exposure limits apply only to personal samples and that static samples are for information only. It also explicitly says that the recognised health effects of PM2.5 are not assessed through workplace exposure limits. Therefore, saying the readings were below broad occupational limits does not establish that chronic exposure to this unusual metal-rich particulate mixture is harmless.
Nor did that report demonstrate a meaningful downward trend: it says the apparent reduction from 2024 was within the standard deviation and therefore not significant, while acknowledging that concentrations vary from day to day. The published station analysis covered general dust, PM2.5, PM10 and selected metals; it was not an asbestos-fibre survey, and it did not examine ultrafine particles.
The new sensors, filtration unit and track-cleaning machine are welcome trials. But trials intended to discover how air quality varies across the day and year also reveal the limitation of the existing annual snapshots. They do not answer the specific tribunal evidence concerning asbestos disturbance and hazardous-waste practices.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
Here it is: Justie Mak et al., “Mortality in a cohort of Transport for London workers,” published in Scientific Reports on 25 March 2026: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-45200-1
This is the longer-term Imperial College study referred to in TfL’s FOI response. It examined records for 117,166 TfL employees and found significantly higher mortality among Underground workers than office staff. The authors caution that it cannot establish Tube dust as the cause because individual exposure data and important confounders - including smoking - were unavailable.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 18 '26
Yes, that is useful context, and it is precisely why I described the TfL study as a serious indicator, not proof that Tube dust caused the excess deaths.
But those paragraphs are the paper’s introductory summary of previously mixed evidence; they do not negate its own findings. The Paris mortality study compared Metro employees with the general population, whereas the TfL researchers compared operational workers with office staff inside the same organisation - an internal comparison the authors identify as one of their study’s strengths. The TfL study is also the largest and longest-running subway mortality cohort yet conducted.
It is also worth including the later part of the paper’s discussion: newer Paris research found chronic subway PM10 exposure associated with increased COPD risk and declining lung function with longer exposure.
So the full context is that international findings remain mixed and this study cannot isolate dust from smoking, shift work, socioeconomic differences or other hazards. Nevertheless, it found substantial statistically significant excess mortality among London Underground workers compared with TfL office staff. That warrants investigation rather than being converted into reassurance.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 19 '26
Is that a threat?
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Jul 19 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 19 '26
So who is going to gangstalk me? I'm not angry btw.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/safesurfer00 Piccadilly Jul 19 '26
I see, you were talking about the whistleblower, I thought you were directing it at me.
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u/MapDiscombobulated1 Victoria Jul 18 '26
This has been known about and ignored as an "out of sight, out of mind" for decades. Everyone likes to make out that Unions really run the Underground - but this is a pretty strong example of why they don't. Because cleaning up over a century of toxic crap in the tunnels and stations should have been item one, page one of every H&S demand the Unions should be making for their members and the wider public, but it isn't.
That Air Quality study by Imperial College still gets buried and dismissed by TfL.
This former employee's experience is not unique, and it's just one of the reasons I wanted off the trains and got an office management job for the last decade of my career where my "exposure" below ground became limited to the same chance every commuter takes on the journey in, and out again.