Bilston · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bilston workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bilston
Bilston is one of the oldest towns of the Black Country, a market and metal-working place on the south-eastern edge of Wolverhampton where John Wilkinson's Bradley ironworks helped fire the furnaces that gave the whole region its name. It is a town that made cannon and steam-engine cylinders, cast iron for two hundred years, and painted the famous eighteenth-century Bilston enamels prized in collections from here to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Its working economy still runs on the fabrication, engineering and food trades, much of it grouped in the industrial units around Loxdale Industrial Estate and Springvale Industrial Park off Millfields Road.
Every Bilston 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 Loxdale Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Bilston units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bilston and the wider West Midlands it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machines and grinders in the engineering shops off the Black Country Route, the modern descendants of Bilston's iron and metal-working trade.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food producers and cold stores around Loxdale and Springvale, where food-manufacturing units run alongside the retail sheds on the Black Country Route.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bilston 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 Loxdale and Springvale units, in a town whose steel was cast at Bilston for two hundred years. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bilston bodyshops and at the automotive workshops of the City of Wolverhampton College campus on Wellington Road. 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 engineering and technical rooms at the City of Wolverhampton College Bilston campus and local laboratories, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bilston
We are out under Bilston's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A busy school woodwork room in Bilston had capture velocity dropping below benchmark at some of its saw and sander hoods, with a slipping fan drive belt. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. One point failed at first on an unsealed joint and passed after remedial work, with the report handed over on completion. The visit was fitted around opening time so the team weren't disturbed.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Bilston system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Loxdale 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 Bilston 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.
For the great majority of Bilston sites, from the Loxdale 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 Bilston 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 Bilston duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Springvale Industrial Park 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.
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 Bilston, but a Loxdale Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Loxdale Industrial Estate and Springvale Industrial Park and across the wider West Midlands.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Loxdale Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bilston university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Loxdale Industrial Estate and Springvale Industrial Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
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 Loxdale Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Loxdale Industrial Estate 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
John Wilkinson, the ironmaster they called Iron-Mad, built his ironworks at Bradley in Bilston parish in the 1750s and was hailed as the father of the South Staffordshire iron trade, with Bilston reckoned the very start of the Black Country. He bored cannon and the cylinders that made James Watt's steam engines run true, and that precision-engineering instinct still lives in the town's machine shops and fabricators. 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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