Manchester built modern Britain. The machinery of its cotton mills, the engineering works of Trafford Park, the docks at Salford Quays, the railway shops at Gorton and Newton Heath, and the construction that rebuilt the city after the war all relied on one material that was praised as miraculous at the time and is now understood to be lethal: asbestos.

Decades after those industries peaked, the consequences are still arriving. The Health and Safety Executive recorded 2,218 mesothelioma deaths in Great Britain in 2023, and around 1,680 new cases were assessed under the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit scheme in 2024 (HSE, Mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain, 2025, July 2025). Most people diagnosed today were exposed between 1950 and 1980, in industries that shaped Greater Manchester.

WE Solicitors has been handling asbestos disease and industrial injury claims for more than 24 years. From our office in Oldham, we act for mesothelioma and asbestos-related disease clients and their families across Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Rochdale, Bolton, Bury, Tameside, Wigan and the wider North West. This page explains what we do, the law that applies, and the compensation that may be available.

What is mesothelioma?

Mesothelioma is a cancer of the pleura, the thin lining that covers the lungs, or less commonly the lining of the abdomen. It is caused almost exclusively by inhaling asbestos fibres. Once inside the body, those fibres can sit undisturbed for 30 years or more before the disease develops (HSE, Mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain, 2025). Most people diagnosed today were exposed in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s and had no way of knowing at the time how dangerous the material was.

Mesothelioma is aggressive and almost always fatal, often within 12 months of the first symptoms. Early signs are vague: persistent chest or shoulder pain, breathlessness, unexplained weight loss, tiredness. Because the symptoms are easily mistaken for other conditions, many people are only diagnosed at an advanced stage.

The Manchester asbestos legacy

Few cities were as industrially exposed to asbestos as Manchester. The risk was everywhere:

• Trafford Park: the largest planned industrial estate in Europe, home to heavy engineering (Metro-Vickers, Ford, GEC, ICI), where asbestos lagging covered boilers, steam pipes, turbines and furnaces.
• Textile mills: cotton and spinning mills across Oldham, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Stockport and central Manchester used asbestos insulation on their steam engines, ducting and electrical systems.
• Railway works: the Gorton locomotive works, Horwich works, Newton Heath rail depot and Manchester Victoria carriage sheds used asbestos brake linings, lagging and insulation boards.
• Salford Docks and shipbuilding: the Manchester Ship Canal and docks at Salford Quays, closed in 1982, exposed dockers, ship repairers and maintenance workers to asbestos on vessels and cargo.
• Construction: carpenters, plumbers, electricians and maintenance workers across Greater Manchester routinely handled asbestos insulation board (AIB), sprayed coatings and lagging in schools, hospitals, council housing and office blocks.
• Power generation, hospitals and local authority buildings: asbestos was used extensively until the 1980s in boilers, pipework, roofing, ceiling tiles and flooring.

According to HSE research, around 46 per cent of mesotheliomas in men born in the 1940s are attributable to building-trade asbestos exposures, and 17 per cent to carpentry work alone (HSE, Research Report RR696).

Who we help across Manchester and Greater Manchester

WE Solicitors acts for clients who worked in, or were secondarily exposed through family members who worked in:

• Heavy engineering and manufacturing at Trafford Park and across the conurbation
• Cotton, textile and spinning mills across the Greater Manchester boroughs
• Railway and rolling-stock engineering (Gorton, Horwich, Newton Heath, Victoria)
• Shipbuilding, ship repair and dock work at Salford and along the Manchester Ship Canal
• Construction, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, plastering and plant maintenance
• Public sector buildings, schools, hospitals, and local authority housing
• Power stations and utilities

We also help widows, widowers, children and other dependants bring claims after a loved one has died. In fatal cases, compensation may include a bereavement award and dependency claims on behalf of the family.

The three-year time limit explained

Personal injury claims in England and Wales are normally governed by the Limitation Act 1980. Under section 11, a claim must be brought within three years. However, because asbestos diseases take decades to appear, the Act provides a crucial safeguard: the clock does not start at the point of exposure, but from the claimant’s date of knowledge.

Section 14 defines the date of knowledge as the date on which the claimant first knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that:

1. The injury was significant;
2. It was attributable in whole or in part to the act or omission alleged to amount to negligence; and
3. The identity of the defendant.

In practice, for mesothelioma this is almost always the date of diagnosis, even if exposure happened 40 or 50 years earlier.

If the person with mesothelioma has already passed away, the Limitation Act 1980 (section 12) and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 allow a fresh three-year period from the date of death for their family to bring a claim. This means that bereaved families should not assume it is too late simply because their loved one cannot claim themselves.

How much compensation can you claim?

Mesothelioma claims are among the highest-value personal injury claims in England and Wales because the disease is terminal and the harm is catastrophic. The Judicial College Guidelines, which the courts use to assess general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity, set the following bracket in the 18th edition:

(Source: Judicial College Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, 18th edition)

General damages are only part of the picture. A full mesothelioma claim typically also includes:

• Loss of earnings, past and future, for anyone forced to stop working
• Care and assistance costs, both paid professional care and care provided unpaid by family members
• Medical treatment, including immunotherapy and other private treatment where the NHS cannot provide it in time
• Home adaptations and equipment
• Funeral expenses and the statutory bereavement award in fatal cases
• Dependency claims for surviving spouses, partners and children

A serious mesothelioma claim typically resolves at six figures in total, and in the most severe cases can reach and exceed a quarter of a million pounds.

Our approach to mesothelioma and asbestos disease claims

Mesothelioma claims are unique. Prognosis is short, the law on limitation is specialist, and insurers for employers that closed decades ago must be traced quickly. WE Solicitors works to a protocol built around those realities:

• Urgent action. Wherever possible, we secure an early statement from the claimant in their own words, which the court can admit as evidence even if they pass away before trial.
• Show cause procedure. We use the specialist mesothelioma fast-track procedure in the High Court and the County Court at Central London where appropriate, which prioritises these cases and compresses the litigation timeline.
• Provisional damages. For clients with pleural thickening, asbestosis or pleural plaques who may later develop mesothelioma, we can often secure provisional damages, preserving the right to return to court if the condition worsens.
• Insurer tracing. Many employers from the 1960s and 1970s no longer exist. We routinely trace historic employers’ liability insurers so that claims can still be brought.
• No Win, No Fee. Every case is handled on a no win, no fee basis, with nothing to pay up front and nothing to pay if the claim does not succeed.

For related practice information, see our pages on mesothelioma claims and asbestos disease claims.

Steve Evans, Senior Partner

Steve Evans is the Senior Partner at WE Solicitors and leads the firm’s industrial disease practice. He has spent more than two decades acting for workers, widows and families affected by asbestos-related disease, principally in the North of England. Steve is the firm’s spokesperson on industrial disease matters and is directly involved in complex mesothelioma, asbestosis and pleural thickening cases.

Steve and his team are known for taking on difficult cases where former employers have ceased trading, insurers are hard to locate, or the medical evidence is contested. Clients can expect their claim to be handled personally by a named solicitor, not passed through a call centre.

Frequently asked questions

I have only just been diagnosed. How quickly should I act?
As quickly as is sensibly possible. Prognosis in mesothelioma is often measured in months rather than years, and the court takes steps to fast-track claims where the claimant is seriously unwell. Early instructions also allow us to obtain a witness statement from the claimant in their own words.

My husband died from mesothelioma but never made a claim. Is it too late?
Usually not. A fresh three-year period runs from the date of death, and a claim can still be brought by the executors of the estate and by dependants under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976.

The company I worked for closed years ago. Can I still claim?
Yes. Claims are generally pursued against the employer’s liability insurer at the time you worked there, not the company itself. WE Solicitors has extensive experience tracing insurers for employers that closed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Do I need to have worked in an obvious asbestos job to claim?
No. Building trades, office-based staff in asbestos-contaminated buildings, family members exposed through an asbestos worker’s clothing (“secondary exposure”) and others have all successfully claimed.

Do I have to go to court?
Most mesothelioma claims are settled without a contested trial. Where they do reach court, the specialist mesothelioma lists are designed to bring the case to a conclusion as quickly as possible.

Sources: HSE, Mesothelioma statistics for Great Britain, 2025 (July 2025), https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/assets/docs/mesothelioma.pdf · HSE, Asbestos-related disease statistics, Great Britain 2025 (November 2025), https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/assets/docs/asbestos-related-disease.pdf · HSE, Research Report RR696: The burden of occupational cancer in Great Britain · Judicial College Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, 17th edition (April 2024) · Limitation Act 1980, sections 11, 12 and 14, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/contents · Fatal Accidents Act 1976, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/30/contents