Bingley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bingley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bingley
Bingley is an old worsted town of around twenty thousand people set in the Aire Valley between Bradford and Keighley, and it carries one of the great feats of Georgian engineering on its doorstep - the Five Rise Locks, the steepest staircase of locks in Britain, opened on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1774. It is the town that gave the Bradford and Bingley Building Society half its name, and where Damart has spun thermal cloth in the old Bowling Green Mills for the best part of sixty years.
Its working economy still turns on manufacturing, the fabrication trades and food production, much of it grouped in the units along the valley floor at the Castlefields Industrial Estate and Aire Valley Park.
Every one of those Bingley processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Castlefields Industrial Estate units to the smaller Bingley workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bingley and the wider West Yorkshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC and turning machines in the Castlefields Industrial Estate units, from hydraulic-component makers like C and C Hydraulics to the precision machine shops that grew out of the valley's textile-machinery trade.
Steam-canopy and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers on the Aire Valley floor, where the air the line breathes is captured before it settles.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught benches at Bingley cabinet and joinery shops, where hardwood and MDF dust is caught at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Castlefields and Aire Valley fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bingley bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is tested to its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the testing and quality labs of the town's textile and manufacturing employers, Damart among them, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bingley
We are out under Bingley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A Bingley print shop had lost capture velocity at several solvent extraction hoods, with a filter well past due for replacement. We logged benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with the tired filter. Once the slipping belt was sorted the capture returned within benchmark, and the readings went into a report for the file. We worked a single overnight shift so the bay could open as normal.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bingley 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 Castlefields 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 Bingley 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 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
On most Bingley sites - the Castlefields 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 Bingley 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 Bingley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Aire Valley 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Castlefields Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bingley university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Castlefields Industrial Estate and Aire Valley Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Yorkshire.
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 Castlefields Industrial Estate or a smaller Bingley workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Bingley, but a Castlefields Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Myrtle Walk 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 Castlefields 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.
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 Castlefields Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
Bingley grew up on worsted, and the machine shops that once kept the valley's looms and combing frames running left the town a lasting instinct for precision engineering. That instinct still runs through the units at Castlefields and Aire Valley Park, from hydraulic and component makers to the turning and milling shops that throw off oil mist, coolant mist and metal dust every shift. Each of them carries a duty to control what its work puts into the air. 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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