Bedlington · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bedlington workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bedlington
Bedlington is an ancient Northumberland market town of around 18,000 people, the old county town of Bedlingtonshire, and a place whose name travelled the world twice over - once on the Bedlington Terrier bred here for the pits, and once on the malleable iron rails rolled at the Bedlington Ironworks that helped start the railway age.
Its working economy runs on engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the industrial units at Barrington Industrial Estate and along Vulcan Place off the town centre.
Every Bedlington 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 Barrington Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Bedlington units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and 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 Bedlington and across Northumberland it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on machining and turning centres in the units at Barrington Industrial Estate and Vulcan Place, heirs to the rail-rolling and engineering trade the Bedlington Ironworks built here.
Steam canopies, flour dust and chill-line extraction at the dairies, bakeries and food units on Barrington Industrial Estate, where product-contact air has to stay clean.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bedlington joinery and cabinet workshops, 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 Barrington Industrial Estate and Vulcan Place units, in a town that once puddled and rolled its own iron. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bedlington 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 town's schools, colleges and technical workshops, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bedlington
We are out under Bedlington's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Capture velocity at several of the dust hoods had dropped below the benchmark at a town-centre Bedlington monumental mason's, with debris building up in the ducting. I checked the static pressure, made good the loose joint and re-tested each point. Every point passed once the unsealed connection was sorted, and I left the readings and a report for the file. We set up a recurring six-monthly clean to stay on top of it.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bedlington 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 Barrington 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 a Bedlington 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.
For the great majority of Bedlington sites, from the Barrington Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Bedlington 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 Bedlington duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Vulcan Place 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.
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 Barrington Industrial Estate or a smaller Bedlington workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Barrington Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bedlington 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 Barrington Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Barrington Industrial Estate and Vulcan Place and across the wider Northumberland.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Barrington Industrial Estate and Vulcan Place, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Northumberland.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bedlington 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.
Local knowledge
In 1820 John Birkinshaw, agent at the Bedlington Ironworks in Blyth Dene, patented the wrought iron rail rolled in a wedge section, and by 1822 the works had delivered around twelve hundred tons of malleable rails to the Stockton and Darlington Railway that opened in 1825. Michael Longridge ran the works, and his friend George Stephenson carried the Bedlington rail into the railway age. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and fabrication units, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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