Been chatting to people and knocking a couple of items off the 'to do' list relating to the new property.
Overall things are going fairly well with the only tricky element being that 'Artex' plasterwork that may contain some low levels of asbestos. I got a couple of quotes for a survey and am in the process of getting another from someone more local to me that my Town Hall were able to identify. Both of the experts I spoke to said that the hessian lagging shouldn't contain any asbestos so it seems that may not be a worry. Also, apparently it's only 50:50 that the Artex will contain asbestos so I'll keep my fingers crossed for some luck there.
It's funny how things can be learned when working on such a 'to do' list. One of the points in the survey was that the attic has, or had, wasps in it and that should be investigated. When I spoke to environmental health at our town hall they advised that this wouldn't be an issue as any nest would be 'dead' by this time of year and wouldn't be reused in the future. Apparently the new queens fly off to form new colonies and any remaining wasps die. I was told that the chance of a new nest in the attic is 'most unlikely' and even if that does happen they will be able to advise on how to deal with it very easily. I was told that wasp nests are a 1 year thing and I never knew that to be the case.