Borehamwood · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Borehamwood workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Borehamwood
Borehamwood grew up around the film camera, and for a century it has been called the British Hollywood - a Hertfordshire town of around 34,000 people that has been home to seven studios, from the original British National Studios of 1925 to Elstree, the BBC Elstree Centre and the Sky Studios complex on Rowley Lane.
Its working economy reaches well beyond the sound stages, into precision engineering, food production and the fabrication and scenery trades, much of it grouped in the units at Centennial Park and the Borehamwood Industrial Park on Rowley Lane.
Every one of those Borehamwood 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 Centennial Park units to the smaller Borehamwood 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 Borehamwood and the wider Hertfordshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and toolrooms, in a town whose engineering pedigree runs from the secret electronic digital computers the Admiralty and Elliott Brothers built at Borehamwood from 1946 to the technology firms clustered at Centennial Park today.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers on the Borehamwood and Well End estates that supply the town's shops, studio canteens and cafes.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables in the joinery and scenic-carpentry workshops that build sets for Elstree Studios, the BBC Elstree Centre and Sky Studios, 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 Rowley Lane and Manor Way units and the metal shops that fabricate studio rigging and scenery. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Borehamwood bodyshops and the vehicle-prep bays that service the studios. 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 healthcare and technology companies at Centennial Park and the science labs of the town's schools and colleges, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Borehamwood
We are out under Borehamwood's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A much-loved ceramics studio in Borehamwood had seen the airflow at its dust capture hoods drop since the last test, pointing to a fan that wasn't reaching its rated speed. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with a tired filter. With the fault cleared the system met control standards, and the report was handed over on completion. The foreman booked a regular annual visit on the spot.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Borehamwood 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 Centennial 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 Borehamwood 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 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
On most Borehamwood sites - the Centennial 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 Borehamwood 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 Borehamwood duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Borehamwood 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.
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 Centennial Park or a smaller Borehamwood workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Borehamwood 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 Centennial Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Centennial Park units, term-time access at the Borehamwood university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Borehamwood, but a Centennial Park fabrication shop and a Shenley Road 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 Centennial Park and Borehamwood Industrial Park and across the wider Hertfordshire.
Local knowledge
In 1946 the Admiralty began building highly secret high-performance electronic digital computers in a redundant wartime factory at Borehamwood, and Elliott Brothers made the town one of the earliest homes of British computing. That instinct for precision engineering still runs through its machine shops, toolrooms and the technology firms at Centennial Park, 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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