Ashton-under-Lyne · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Ashton-under-Lyne workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Ashton-under-Lyne
Ashton-under-Lyne is the administrative centre of Tameside in Greater Manchester, around 49,000, home to one of the largest outdoor markets in the country and a cotton-spinning heritage.
The work is engineering and food - the advanced manufacturing and metal fabrication, the textile-finishing heritage, and the food manufacturing and logistics - across the Whitelands and Snipe Way estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever an Ashton-under-Lyne process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Whitelands units down to the smallest Ashton-under-Lyne workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Ashton-under-Lyne and across Greater Manchester it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the engineering and advanced-manufacturing units, a trade rooted in the town's cotton and fabrication history, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Fibre-dust, dye-vapour and mist extraction across the textile and finishing units of the historic spinning town, where fine fibre and vapour need capture proven.
Steam, dust and battery-charging extraction across the food producers and distribution units off the M60, where organic dust and fume need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Whitelands and Snipe Way units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Ashton 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 Tameside College and Tameside General Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Ashton-under-Lyne
We are out under Ashton-under-Lyne's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A metal-fabrication workshop off Whitelands Road in Ashton-under-Lyne had a downdraught grinding bench pulling weak because the collector hopper below it had filled solid with fine steel dust. We emptied the hopper, checked the filter had recovered and measured the capture across the bench grates. It failed at first on the choked collector and passed once cleared, the downdraught back at its design figure. Fine ferrous dust is a combustion risk in a full hopper, so the housekeeping was logged alongside the airflow.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Ashton-under-Lyne system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Whitelands 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 Ashton-under-Lyne line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and advanced manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Ashton-under-Lyne sites - the Whitelands 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 Ashton-under-Lyne 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 Ashton-under-Lyne duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Snipe Way 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. An engineering and advanced manufacturing bay, a textiles and finishing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
We record it as remedial and set out what is needed - airflow, ductwork, filtration or capture at the hood. You do the work and we re-test, and on a Whitelands production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Ashton-under-Lyne, but a Whitelands fabrication shop and an Ashton Market canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Engineering and advanced manufacturing, textiles and finishing, food manufacturing and logistics, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Whitelands and Snipe Way and across the wider Greater Manchester.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Ashton-under-Lyne 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.
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 Whitelands or a smaller Ashton-under-Lyne workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Whitelands units, term-time access at the Ashton-under-Lyne university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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