Banbury · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Banbury workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Banbury
Banbury is an Oxfordshire market town of around 54,000 on the River Cherwell, famous for its cross and its cakes, a food-manufacturing town whose coffee-roasting plant gives it its signature smell.
The signature trade is food and engineering - the coffee-roasting and food manufacturing, the motorsport and advanced engineering, and the logistics - across the Thorpe Way and Wildmere Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Banbury process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Thorpe Way plant to the single-bench Banbury units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Banbury employers and others across Oxfordshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Roaster-fume, chaff-dust and steam extraction across the coffee-roasting and food-manufacturing lines, the defining trade of the town, where roast dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Machining-mist, weld-fume and composite-dust extraction across the motorsport and advanced-engineering units, where fine dust and mist need capture proven.
Battery-charging, weld-fume and paint extraction across the M40 distribution parks, where the maintenance bays need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Thorpe Way and Wildmere Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Banbury 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 Banbury and Bicester College and the Horton General Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Banbury
We are out under Banbury's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A coffee-roasting plant in Banbury had a roaster-exhaust and chaff-extraction hood pulling weak over a bagging line, letting fine roast dust and roasting fume drift into the hall. We measured the capture at the hood and checked the cyclone and ducting for leaks. It failed on the low capture and the dust breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. Roast chaff is a combustion risk in the ducting, so the housekeeping and the airflow were logged together.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Banbury 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 Thorpe Way 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 a Banbury line.
Where exposure is in question - a coffee-roasting and food 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 Banbury sites - the Thorpe Way 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 Banbury 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 Banbury duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Wildmere Road 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 coffee-roasting and food manufacturing bay, a motorsport and advanced engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Coffee-roasting and food manufacturing, motorsport and advanced engineering, logistics and distribution, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Thorpe Way and Wildmere Road and across the wider Oxfordshire.
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 Banbury, but a Thorpe Way fabrication shop and a Parsons Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Thorpe Way and Wildmere Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Oxfordshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Banbury 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Thorpe Way units, term-time access at the Banbury university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 a Thorpe Way unit will ask to see.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.