Asbestos cement sheets - remove or not?

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We recently bought a house which have flat asbestos cement sheets as fencing on the right hand side of the property. It wasn't picked up in the survey, probably due to the fact that they were hidden by a thick growth of bushes alongside it...we trimmed the bushes back so now can see this fencing and it's an eye sore (the bushes took up a lot of the garden, and we didn't know about the fencing at the time...in hindsight I would have left the bushes as they were).

Dilemma now is that whether to get rid of them or not. The responsibility for this side of the garden fence is with the neighbours but he doesn't' want to dispose of them as they are in ok condition, not broken or weathered, so doesn't pose a risk as they are.

But we have 2 DCs and although atm there is very little risk I don't want to take the chance of somehow accidentally damaging the fencing and exposing us all.

DH is adamant that he will with help from BIL take them to the skip himself. Our local skip takes asbestos cement sheets for no cost and the council website says it's safe to handle them if taking the necessary precautions such as masks, overalls, wetting them down etc.... If he does this I'm taking myself and the kids away for the weekend!
But i am a worrier and don't want DH to be exposed (although the council website does say that asbestos cement sheets give off very little fibre even if disturbed as the asbestos is tightly held together by the cement). But he is saying I'm worrying unduly.

The other option is getting it done professionally and it would cost a couple of thousand (it's about 10 panels)...

Another option is to paint it with mansory paint or something that would make the fence nicer to look and provide an extra layer of protection. The council website says these sheets give out negligible amounts of fibres due to weathering and it's safe to leave them as they are, and that the general advice is to leave them unless you have to if you are carrying out works or if they decome damaged.

Anyone had any experience of this? Removing asbestos cement sheets themselves?

OK, first things first - as you know, there's a huge difference between bonded asbestos and free asbestos. These sheets are bonded.

I've removed bonded asbestos sheets myself from a shed roof. It's actually OK to do, but you need to do your research. You need the right overalls, the right masks, the right wellies, and the right routine of work so that you don't end up causing yourself a problem- in particular, you don't want to break the sheets and release fibres. You also need the right disposal bags. You can get all the information you need online, but you need to read up, and carefully too, because this is not stuff to mess around with.

In our case, we needed to get rid of the shed for gardening reasons. As a fence, outdoors, however, I think it's unlikely to cause you many problems, provided that it's not damaged and your kids are old enough not to damage it. (Remembering when we used to hack bits of brick off our school walls at primary school!)

I would leave it and either let the vegetation you have removed grow back to hide and protect it or, put up an inner fence (of wood) to do the same.

Thanks for your replies.

DH says the sheets should just lift up easily as they are not tightly placed in the posts, but obviously they are secure where they are as they've been there for decades. Wish we hadn't cut back the bushes now, but I had no idea about the fence.
My worry about putting up another fence to hide it is that if they do become damaged in any way we wouldn't know about it.
hmmm...