Buckley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Buckley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Buckley
Buckley is the second-largest town in Flintshire, a place of around twenty thousand people on the high ground between Mold and the English border at Chester, and one built quite literally out of the clay beneath it. Its name was once a byword for brick and pottery, with fourteen potteries working in the early nineteenth century and Buckley brick carried across Britain and shipped as far as the United States.
Its working economy today runs on light engineering, fabrication and the food trades, much of it grouped in the units on the Spencer Industrial Estate off Liverpool Road and around Globe Business Park, with the Padeswood cement works and the Deeside industrial belt close at hand.
Every Buckley process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Spencer Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Buckley units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Buckley and the wider Flintshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres across the Spencer Industrial Estate and Globe Business Park, many of them feeding the Deeside engineering cluster and the Airbus wing works at Broughton, with mineral-dust control carried over from the town brickmaking trade and the Padeswood cement plant.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Buckley's bakeries and food units, where airborne dust and vapour are captured at source before they settle on the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Buckley 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 Spencer Industrial Estate and Globe Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Buckley 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 departments at Elfed High School and the process laboratory at the Padeswood cement works, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Buckley
We are out under Buckley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a family-run Buckley pharmacy, airflow at the fume cabinet had dropped away since the last test, pointing to a leaking flexible connection. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the fume cupboards, sorted a tired filter and re-checked the readings. One point failed initially on a slipping belt but passed once the remedial work was done. We emailed the certificate and readings over, fuelled through the morning by the lab manager's bacon rolls.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Buckley 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 Spencer 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 Buckley 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
For most Buckley sites - from the Spencer Industrial Estate units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Buckley 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 Buckley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Globe 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.
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 Buckley, but a Spencer Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Brunswick Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Buckley 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.
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 Spencer Industrial Estate and Globe Business Park and across the wider Flintshire.
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 Spencer 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Spencer Industrial Estate and Globe Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Flintshire.
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 Spencer Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
Buckley grew rich on the clay beneath it, and by the early nineteenth century fourteen potteries and a ring of brickworks were working the town's fire-clay into earthenware, tiles and firebrick shipped as far as the United States. That making-and-firing instinct still runs through the engineering and fabrication units on the Spencer Industrial Estate and Globe Business Park, many of them feeding the Deeside supply chain and the Airbus wing works at Broughton, while the Padeswood cement works remains the town's largest single plant. Every one of those shops carries a duty to control the mist, dust and fume 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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