Belper · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Belper workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Belper
Belper is a Derbyshire mill town of around 22,000 people strung along the River Derwent north of Derby, and one of the places where the modern factory was invented. Jedediah Strutt built his first water-powered cotton mill here in 1776, and the surviving Strutt's North Mill of 1804 is one of the oldest iron-framed 'fireproof' buildings in the world - part of the Derwent Valley Mills that UNESCO inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2001.
Retail and services carry the town now, but manufacturing has never left it: ladder and access-equipment maker Abru and a spread of engineering and fabrication firms work out of the units on Derby Road, at Derwentside Industrial Park and the Heritage Business Centre.
Every Belper 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 Derwentside Industrial Park plant to the single-bench Belper 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 Belper employers and others across Derbyshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops, from Abru's metal ladder and access-tower lines on Derby Road to the precision engineering firms scattered through the Derwentside units.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Belper's bakeries and food producers - a trade with deep local roots since J. W. Thornton ran his chocolate works on Derwent Street until the 1980s.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Belper cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Derwentside Industrial Park and Heritage Business Centre units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Belper 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 local school science departments and the labs of the town's manufacturers, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Belper
We are out under Belper's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Control at the nail stations of a town-centre nail bar in Belper had fallen away, the downdraught benches let down by a leaking flexible connection. We ran the full examination and test, taking velocity readings, using smoke and checking the filter. Once the slipping belt was sorted the capture returned within benchmark, and a signed report followed. We timed the visit for half-term while the studio was quiet.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Belper 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 Derwentside Industrial Park 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 Belper 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
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.
Across most Belper sites - the Derwentside Industrial Park plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Belper 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 Belper duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Heritage Business Centre 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.
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 Derwentside Industrial Park and Heritage Business Centre and across the wider Derbyshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Derwentside Industrial Park units, term-time access at the Belper university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Belper 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. 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 Derwentside Industrial Park unit will ask to see.
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 Belper, but a Derwentside Industrial Park fabrication shop and a King Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Derwentside Industrial Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
From at least the thirteenth century Belper was a nail-making town, and by the 1840s around 400 workers were hammering out common nails and another 250 forging horse-nails - some two million nails a week - in forges scattered across the town, a trade that still gives Belper Town F.C. its nickname, the Nailers. Machine-made nails killed the industry, but the metalworking instinct stayed, and today Abru's access-equipment lines and the town's engineering shops still cut, weld and grind. Every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust that 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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