Broadstairs · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Broadstairs workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Broadstairs
Broadstairs is the smallest and most intimate of Thanet's three seaside towns, a cluster of seven sandy bays on the Kent coast that Charles Dickens made his favourite retreat, holidaying here for more than twenty summers and writing much of David Copperfield in the clifftop house now known as Bleak House. Its Viking Bay, working harbour and Regency seafront still draw the crowds, and the town wears its literary past openly.
Away from the sands, the town's working economy runs on light manufacturing, the food trade and the fabrication workshops grouped at Pysons Road Industrial Estate in St Peter's and, a short way inland, Manston Business Park.
Each of those Broadstairs 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 Pysons Road Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Broadstairs 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 Broadstairs and the wider Kent it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the machining and assembly benches that gave Broadstairs its engineering name - Instro Precision built electro-optical and target-acquisition systems at Pysons Road for decades before moving on to Discovery Park, and precision shops still work the Thanet estates.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and produce packers of the Thanet estates, from the Pysons Road units to the food and produce firms clustered around Manston Business Park.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet and joinery shops on Pysons Road Industrial Estate, 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 Pysons Road and Manston units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Broadstairs and St Peter's 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 science rooms of East Kent College and the town's clinical and care settings, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Broadstairs
We are out under Broadstairs's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a traditional pharmacy in Broadstairs the control at the compounding prep bench had dropped off, the extraction canopies hampered by a slipping fan drive belt. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the fume cabinet, cleared the debris sitting in the ducting and re-checked everything. One point failed initially on that debris but passed after the remedial work, all backed by full test documentation. We timed the visit for the school holidays while the lab was quiet.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Broadstairs 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 Pysons Road 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 Broadstairs 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 Broadstairs sites - the Pysons Road 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 Broadstairs 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 Broadstairs duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Manston Business 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Pysons Road Industrial Estate and Manston Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Broadstairs 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.
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 Pysons Road 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.
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 Pysons Road Industrial Estate and Manston Business Park and across the wider Kent.
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 Pysons Road Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Broadstairs, but a Pysons Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an Albion Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
The clifftop house that Dickens knew as Fort House was built around 1801 for the captain of the North Cliff battery, part of the Napoleonic-war defences that guarded the Channel approaches beside the North Foreland lighthouse, itself lit since 1691. That instinct for careful, exacting work still runs through the town's engineering and precision shops, 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. Where a system falls short, the report says so plainly and shows what to put right.
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