Bromsgrove · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bromsgrove workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bromsgrove
Bromsgrove is a Worcestershire market town of around 30,000 people at the foot of the Lickey Hills, and a place with an outsized industrial past - from the seventeenth century into the nineteenth it was one of the great centres of hand nail-making, its 'nailers' hammering iron rod into nails in workshops behind almost every cottage.
Its working economy today runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Aston Fields Industrial Estate on Sugarbrook Road and Saxon Business Park out at Stoke Prior.
Wherever a Bromsgrove 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 Aston Fields Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Bromsgrove workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Bromsgrove employers and others across Worcestershire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and grinding lines, from clutch and brake engineers like Ortlinghaus on Sugarbrook Road to the precision shops across Aston Fields and Buntsford Park.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food producers and cold-store operations grouped around Aston Fields Industrial Estate and the Sugarbrook Road units.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bromsgrove cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Aston Fields and Saxon Business Park units. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume in 2019, all of it - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bromsgrove 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 labs at Bromsgrove School and the treatment areas of the Princess of Wales Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bromsgrove
We are out under Bromsgrove's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The solder benches at an electronics workshop in Bromsgrove had lost control, the tip extraction nozzles let down by a filter well overdue for replacement. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with a loose joint. The LEV passed on re-test across the tip extraction nozzles, and we issued a thorough examination and test certificate. We flagged the worn part to the workshop manager for their maintenance records.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Bromsgrove 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 Aston Fields 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 Bromsgrove 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 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
For the great majority of Bromsgrove sites, from the Aston Fields Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Bromsgrove 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 Bromsgrove duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Saxon 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Aston Fields Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bromsgrove university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Aston Fields Industrial Estate and Saxon Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Worcestershire.
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 Aston Fields Industrial Estate and Saxon Business Park and across the wider Worcestershire.
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 Aston Fields 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 Bromsgrove, but an Aston Fields Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Aston Fields 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
Bromsgrove made its name in nails: from the seventeenth century into the nineteenth the town was one of the great centres of hand nail-making, and a good nailer working iron rod at a hearth could turn out around 24,000 nails in a week. The forge smoke and metal dust those cramped workshops threw off went straight into the lungs, and the reformer Robert Sherard called the nailers the 'White Slaves of England'. That instinct for working metal still runs through the town's machine shops and engineering suppliers, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work produces. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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