Arbroath · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Arbroath workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Arbroath
Arbroath is the largest town in Angus, a fishing and former textile burgh of around 24,000 people on the North Sea coast, and a place whose name the world already knows - from the smoke-cured Arbroath smokie and its red sandstone Abbey to the Declaration of Arbroath, the 1320 letter that asserted Scotland's ancient independence.
Its working economy runs on engineering, food and drink and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Elliot Industrial Estate on Peasiehill Road and Kirkton Industrial Estate off the Forfar Road.
Each of those Arbroath processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Elliot Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Arbroath workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Arbroath and across Angus it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes, from Halliburton's oilfield-tool manufacturing plant to the engineering shops that carry on Arbroath's long tradition of building and repairing machinery.
Steam, malt-dust and smoke control across Arbroath's food trade - the grain-dust extraction of Bairds Malt's 57,000-tonne Arbroath maltings that supplies the Scotch whisky industry, and the hot-smoking kilns of the town's smokie curers.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Arbroath cabinet shops and joinery works on the Elliot and Kirkton estates, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the sheet-metal and fabrication units at Elliot Industrial Estate. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Arbroath bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the Arbroath campus of Dundee and Angus College on Keptie Road and for Bairds Malt's central laboratory, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Arbroath
We are out under Arbroath's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a ceramics studio in Arbroath the grinding station extraction had lost its bite, and testing showed the fan was never hitting its rated speed. Coming in early each morning before the potters arrived, I took face and capture velocity readings, ran smoke checks at every point and stripped down the fan and filter to see what was throttling it. The real culprit was a leaking connection, and once that was sealed the capture readings climbed back inside benchmark. I logged the lot in a compliance report for their HSE file.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For an Arbroath system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Elliot Industrial Estate units - the faults that quietly kill capture.
Face and capture velocities, static pressures and airflows measured at each hood with calibrated instruments - numbers, not opinion.
Readings compared to the system's commissioning figures, so drift from as-designed is caught before it becomes a failure on an Arbroath line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
On most Arbroath sites - the Elliot Industrial Estate units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Arbroath site.
Calibrated velocity, pressure and airflow readings at each extraction point.
A COSHH-compliant report: results against benchmark, clear pass or fail, and plain-English actions for the Arbroath duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Kirkton Industrial Estate floor.
Questions
Under COSHH Regulation 9, most local exhaust ventilation needs a thorough examination and test at least every 14 months, with higher-risk processes more often. A precision engineering and manufacturing bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Elliot Industrial Estate and Kirkton Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Angus.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Elliot Industrial Estate and Kirkton Industrial Estate and across the wider Angus.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Arbroath workshop needs a commissioning test to prove it performs to its design figures before it goes into service - we measure it and document the baseline the 14-month clock then runs from.
No. LEV testing is a statutory examination of fume and dust control to COSHH and HSG258, with capture and face-velocity readings; TR19 is kitchen grease and fire risk. We do both across Arbroath, but an Elliot Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Marketgate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
A dated report to the HSG258 method, the readings taken, a pass or remedial outcome for each hood, and system labelling - the evidence a duty-holder at Elliot Industrial Estate or a smaller Arbroath workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. Each hood is labelled with its status and next-due date, and you get the HSG258 report and system schematic for your COSHH file - the record an HSE inspector visiting an Elliot Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
Arbroath's flax and jute mills once built and ran their own machinery, and that engineering instinct still runs through the town, where Halliburton's manufacturing plant turns out precision oilfield tools for the global energy industry. The machine shops that carry on that tradition throw off oil mist, coolant mist and metal dust, and every one of them carries a duty to control it. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures. That is the difference between a system that looks like it works and one that is proven to.
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