Boston · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Boston workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Boston
Boston is a historic Lincolnshire port town of around 45,000, dominated by the Boston Stump of St Botolph's Church, fed by the tidal port, and anchoring one of the largest food-processing clusters in the country.
The signature trade is food and produce - the vegetable processing and fresh-produce packing of the Fens, the agricultural engineering, and the port and logistics - across the Riverside Industrial Estate and Nursery Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Boston processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Riverside Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Boston workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Boston and the wider Lincolnshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Steam, mist and refrigeration-plant extraction across the vegetable-processing and fresh-produce packing lines, the defining trade of the town, where cooking kettles, blast-freezers and wash-down humidity load the ductwork and need capture at source.
Weld-fume, cutting-dust and paint-spray extraction across the agricultural-machinery units serving the Fens' arable and horticultural farms, where metal fume and dust need capture proven.
Diesel-exhaust, forklift-fume and dockside weld-fume extraction across the port and distribution units, where steel and timber handling and warehousing need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Riverside Industrial Estate and Nursery 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 Boston 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 Boston College and the Pilgrim Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Boston
We are out under Boston's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A vegetable-packing plant in Boston had a steam-and-mist extraction over a blanching-and-cooking line pulling weak because the ducting above it had loaded with condensate and organic residue. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the fouling. It failed on the restricted duct and the mist breakthrough, and we specified the clean and remedial run. The line ran hot and humid, so the test was fitted around a wash-down shift. The plant drew through three capture hoods over the blanchers and a long horizontal trunk to a roof-mounted centrifugal fan, and we traversed each hood face, mapped the velocity fall along the run and marked where condensate had pooled in the low sections. With the fouling logged against the design figures, we set out a staged clean and a re-test date, so the Fen produce line could be signed back to a compliant capture reading rather than nursed along on a failing draw. It was a brassica and root-crop line, washing and blanching through the night in the peak of the Fen harvest, so the humidity never really dropped and the refrigeration plant next to it threw its own warm exhaust into the same roof space; we accounted for both in the readings and flagged the make-up air that was starving the hoods before the grease and steam ever reached the fan.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Boston 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 Riverside 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 Boston line.
Where exposure is in question - a food processing and produce packing 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 Boston sites - the Riverside Industrial Estate 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 Boston 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 Boston duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Nursery 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 food processing and produce packing bay, an agricultural engineering and machinery 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 Boston, but a Riverside Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Market Place canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Boston 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 Riverside Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Boston university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Riverside Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Food processing and produce packing, agricultural engineering and machinery, port and logistics, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Riverside Industrial Estate and Nursery Road Industrial Estate and across the wider Lincolnshire.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Riverside Industrial Estate and Nursery Road Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lincolnshire.
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