Bridgnorth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bridgnorth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bridgnorth
Bridgnorth is a market town on the River Severn in Shropshire, home to around 12,000 people and famous for its split-level layout - a High Town on the sandstone cliff and a Low Town on the riverbank below, joined by the steepest inland funicular railway in England.
Its working side is precision metal - aluminium rolling, casting and general engineering - clustered on the Stanmore Industrial Estate and the Stourbridge Road Industrial Estate off Faraday Drive, the kind of light-industrial base that has kept this Severn town in skilled work for generations.
Wherever a Bridgnorth process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Stanmore Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Bridgnorth workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bridgnorth and the wider Shropshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Bridgnorth Aluminium has rolled flat aluminium coil on the edge of the town for over eighty years, and the mills, coating lines and slitting bays throw oil mist and metal fume. Local exhaust ventilation over the process line is tested so that mist stays below the level that reaches deep into the lungs.
Grainger and Worrall runs aluminium sand casting and machining for the defence, energy and aerospace sectors from the Stanmore estate. Casting and fettling raise silica and metal dust, so extraction at the bench and the shot-blast is examined to the airflow the work demands.
Metalworking-fluid mist off the lathes and mills of Bridgnorth's general engineering firms carries deep into the lungs. Mist-capture enclosures and extracted machine tools pull it back, and airflow is checked against the figure the guarding was designed to hold.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Stanmore Industrial Estate and Stourbridge Road Industrial Estate units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bridgnorth 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 Telford College and Bridgnorth Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bridgnorth
We are out under Bridgnorth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A joinery workshop in Bridgnorth had the extraction on its saws pulling poorly, down to a slipping fan drive belt. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the tool capture hoods, replaced the belt and cleared the ducting, then re-checked each point. All points passed on re-test once the belt was sorted, and we issued the LEV report with the readings.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bridgnorth 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 Stanmore 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 Bridgnorth line.
Where exposure is in question - an aluminium rolling and finishing 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.
On most Bridgnorth sites - the Stanmore 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 Bridgnorth 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 Bridgnorth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Stourbridge 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. An aluminium rolling and finishing bay, a precision casting and foundry work bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bridgnorth 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.
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 Bridgnorth, but a Stanmore Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
aluminium rolling and finishing, precision casting and foundry work, engineering and machining, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and labs and fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Stanmore Industrial Estate and Stourbridge Road Industrial Estate and across the wider Shropshire.
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 Stanmore Industrial Estate or a smaller Bridgnorth workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Stanmore 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 Stanmore 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
The Bridgnorth Cliff Railway opened in 1892, hauling passengers up the sandstone cliff between Low Town and High Town on what is still the steepest and oldest inland funicular in England. Moving a load safely up a fixed line takes constant, tested control - and so does local exhaust ventilation. The engineering and casting trades on the town's estates throw dust, fume and metalworking mist, and LEV is tested to COSHH schedules so what leaves a Bridgnorth bench is measured at the hood, not assumed.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.