Bedworth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bedworth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bedworth
Bedworth is a Warwickshire town of around 31,000 people set between Coventry and Nuneaton, and it is known across Britain as the town that never forgets - for the Armistice Day parade it has held every 11 November since 1921. Its story was written in coal and cloth: pit villages, silk-ribbon looms and felt hats built the place long before the shopping precinct arrived.
Its working economy still turns on the fabrication and engineering trades, much of it grouped in the units of the Bayton Road Industrial Estate at Exhall and the works along Black Horse Road.
Each of those Bedworth 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 Bayton Road Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Bedworth workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Bedworth and the rest of Warwickshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from Arrowsmith Engineering and the cluster of aerospace-supply firms on the Bayton Road Industrial Estate to the general machine shops feeding the Coventry motor trade next door.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food units on the Exhall estates, where extraction keeps heat, moisture and airborne dust off the shop floor.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bedworth cabinet shops and joinery works such as the long-established Woodcrafts on Bayton Road, 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 firms at Exhall, from Apollo Sheet Metal to Coventry Metalcraft. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bedworth bodyshops serving the Coventry car country next door. 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 science rooms of North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and the laboratories at the George Eliot Hospital nearby, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bedworth
We are out under Bedworth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A family-run fabrication shop in Bedworth was reading low on face velocity across its bench capture hoods, traced to a leaking flexible connection. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. The LEV passed on re-test across the fume extraction arms, and we issued a signed report. The foreman kept us going with fresh coffee through the morning.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bedworth 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 Bayton Road 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 Bedworth 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 Bedworth sites - the Bayton Road 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 Bedworth 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 Bedworth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Black Horse 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 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 Bayton Road Industrial Estate or a smaller Bedworth workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bedworth 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 Bayton Road Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bedworth university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bayton Road Industrial Estate and Black Horse Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Warwickshire.
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 Bayton Road Industrial Estate and Black Horse Road and across the wider Warwickshire.
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 Bedworth, but a Bayton Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
Coal made Bedworth. The Warwickshire coalfield ran beneath the town for centuries, and Newdigate Colliery - sunk for the Newdigate family of Arbury Hall and worked until February 1982 - was the last pit in the borough to close. That engineering instinct still runs through the machine shops and aerospace-supply firms on the Bayton Road Industrial Estate, 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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