Billingham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Billingham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Billingham
Billingham sits on the north bank of the Tees in the old County Durham, a town the chemical age built - the birthplace of ICI's synthetic ammonia works, whose wartime Synthonia gave the local football club its name. The vast plant that grew from Grange Farm is said to have helped inspire Aldous Huxley's Brave New World after his visit in the 1930s, and its fertiliser, methanol and Perspex chemistry still shapes the town today.
Its working economy still turns on process and chemical engineering, biopharmaceuticals and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Belasis Business Park and on the industrial land around Haverton Hill.
Wherever a Billingham 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 Belasis Business Park units down to the smallest Billingham workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Billingham and the wider County Durham it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the machine shops and process lines that feed Billingham's chemical complex, from CF Fertilisers on Haverton Hill Road to the fabrication units around Belasis Business Park.
Steam canopies and dust control in the area food plants and bakeries, and the food-grade carbon dioxide that the Billingham fertiliser works have long captured for the drinks trade.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Billingham 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 Belasis and Haverton Hill units that fabricate for the Teesside process plants. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Billingham 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 biopharmaceutical and research labs at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies on Belasis Avenue and the science firms clustered around it, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Billingham
We are out under Billingham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A town-centre vehicle workshop in Billingham had airflow at its exhaust extraction points down on the last test, with the fan not reaching its rated speed. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Capture came back within benchmark once a loose joint was sorted, logged in a full LEV report for the COSHH file. We handed the foreman a short photo report for his health and safety folder too.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Billingham 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 Belasis Business 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 Billingham line.
Where exposure is in question - a process and precision engineering 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 Billingham sites - the Belasis Business Park 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 Billingham 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 Billingham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Haverton Hill Industrial Estate 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 process and precision engineering 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Belasis Business Park and Haverton Hill Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider County Durham.
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 Belasis Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Belasis Business Park or a smaller Billingham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Belasis Business 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 Billingham, but a Belasis Business Park fabrication shop and a Queensway canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Belasis Business Park units, term-time access at the Billingham university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
The Government Nitrogen Factory rose from Grange Farm at Billingham in 1918, and once Brunner Mond and then ICI took it over the town became the home of British synthetic ammonia, nitric acid and, in 1966, the world's first low-pressure methanol plant. That process-engineering instinct still runs through Billingham's chemical and fabrication shops, from CF Fertilisers on Haverton Hill Road to the units around Belasis, 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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