Bognor Regis · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bognor Regis workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis is West Sussex's best-known seaside resort, a town of around sixty thousand people on the Channel coast whose name the whole country knows - King George V convalesced here in 1929 and granted it the royal suffix Regis, and Billy Butlin planted one of Britain's great holiday camps on its eastern edge in 1960.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Oldlands Farm, the Rock Road estate and the new Enterprise Bognor Regis development on the northern edge of town.
Every Bognor Regis 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 Oldlands Farm plant to the single-bench Bognor Regis 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 Bognor Regis employers and others across West Sussex it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from the Rolls-Royce plant anchoring Enterprise Bognor Regis to the engineering shops that carry on the town's LEC Refrigeration manufacturing tradition.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the town's bakeries, seafood handlers and the vast catering kitchens of the Butlin's resort, where extraction keeps heat, moisture and grease moving.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bognor cabinet shops and joinery works on the Rock Road and Oldlands estates, 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 Oldlands Farm and Rock Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bognor Regis 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 engineering and digital-technology labs of the University of Chichester Tech Park, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bognor Regis
We are out under Bognor Regis's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the saw and sander hoods of an independent Bognor Regis upholstery workshop had dropped off since the last test, with the fan struggling to reach its rated speed. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Every point passed on re-test once the worn impeller was replaced, and we handed the report over on completion. The job ran on a Sunday while the shop was closed.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bognor Regis 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 Oldlands Farm 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 Bognor Regis 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
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
Across most Bognor Regis sites - the Oldlands Farm 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 Bognor Regis 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 Bognor Regis duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Rock Road 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 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 Bognor Regis, but an Oldlands Farm fabrication shop and a Queensway canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bognor Regis 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 Oldlands Farm units, term-time access at the Bognor Regis university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Oldlands Farm and Rock Road Industrial Estate and across the wider West Sussex.
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 an Oldlands Farm 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 an Oldlands Farm 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
Frank and Charles Purley, fishmongers who could not afford the ice their trade needed, bought a small engineering workshop on Longford Road in 1942, and by the 1980s their LEC Refrigeration works on Shripney Road employed around two thousand people and turned out more than two thousand fridges a day. That manufacturing instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and the precision engineers now drawn to Enterprise Bognor Regis, 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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