Burgess Hill · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Burgess Hill workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill is a West Sussex town of around 30,000 people on the London to Brighton line, a settlement that barely existed until the railway reached it in the 1840s and then grew on the back of the clay beneath it. Its name still carries the mark of the Keymer Brick and Tile Company, whose terracotta and tiles went into landmark buildings far beyond Sussex.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, diagnostics and the fabrication trades, most of it grouped in the industrial units at Victoria Business Park to the south west and the smaller Sheddingdean Business Park to the north.
Wherever a Burgess Hill 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 Victoria Business Park units down to the smallest Burgess Hill 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 Burgess Hill and the wider West Sussex it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from HPC Precision Engineering making parts for iconic British motor cars to the many light-engineering units across Victoria Business Park.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food units and production kitchens on the Burgess Hill business parks, where airborne dust and steam are captured at source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the town's 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 Victoria Business Park and Sheddingdean units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Burgess Hill 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 Roche Diagnostics, whose UK diagnostics headquarters sits at Victoria Business Park, and for the town's other laboratory users, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Burgess Hill
We are out under Burgess Hill's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The saw and sander hoods at a privately owned joinery workshop in Burgess Hill were reading below benchmark on capture velocity, with a leaking flexible connection behind it. We checked static pressure, cleared debris out of the ducting and re-tested each point against benchmark. Once the worn impeller was sorted all the hoods passed on re-test, and the report was handed over on completion. We worked a single overnight shift so the unit could open as normal.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Burgess Hill system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Victoria Business Park 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 Burgess Hill 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 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For the great majority of Burgess Hill sites, from the Victoria Business Park 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 Burgess Hill 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 Burgess Hill duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Sheddingdean 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. 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 Victoria Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Victoria Business Park and Sheddingdean Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Sussex.
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 Victoria Business Park or a smaller Burgess Hill workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Victoria Business Park and Sheddingdean Business Park and across the wider West Sussex.
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 Burgess Hill, but a Victoria Business Park fabrication shop and a Church Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Victoria Business Park units, term-time access at the Burgess Hill university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Burgess Hill barely existed as a town until the London and Brighton Railway opened through it in September 1841, and the line turned a scatter of common-edge cottages into a working settlement within a generation. That railway drew in the engineering and manufacturing that still fills the town, from HPC Precision Engineering machining parts for classic British cars to the aviation training simulators CAE builds and runs here. Every one of those shops 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.
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