Burnham-on-Sea · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Burnham-on-Sea workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Burnham-on-Sea
Burnham-on-Sea is a Somerset seaside resort on Bridgwater Bay, where the River Parrett empties into the Bristol Channel across some of the widest mudflats in Britain. It is a town of records and oddities - the stubby concrete pier of 1911 is claimed as the shortest in the country, and the nine-legged Low Lighthouse of 1832, the Lighthouse on Legs, still stands out on the open sand.
Its working economy runs on food production, engineering and the trades that keep a resort and its holiday parks fed and maintained, much of it grouped in the industrial units of Isleport Business Park in the twinned town of Highbridge, minutes from junction 22 of the M5.
Every one of those Burnham-on-Sea processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Isleport Business Park units to the smaller Burnham-on-Sea workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Burnham-on-Sea and across Somerset it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the machining and fabrication units around Isleport Business Park in Highbridge, where metal-cutting throws off a fine airborne mist that has to be captured at the machine.
Steam canopies and dust control across the food factories that anchor the Highbridge estates, from the Yeo Valley chilled operation to the Bakkavor dessert plant, where product-contact air has to be kept clean and moving.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Burnham and Highbridge cabinet shops and the joinery works that fit out the seafront cafes and caravan parks, capturing hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Isleport units and the marine and trailer trades serving Bridgwater Bay. Since the HSE reclassification in 2019, all welding fume, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at bodyshops around Burnham and Highbridge, and the caravan and motorhome repairers who serve the Brean and Berrow holiday parks. 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 laboratories, water-quality units and college workshops around the town, checked to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Burnham-on-Sea
We are out under Burnham-on-Sea's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A refurbished Burnham-on-Sea welding bay had airflow readings at the bench extract arms falling away since the last test, which pointed to a leaking flexible connection. We logged benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with the blocked filter. Once the worn impeller was sorted every point passed on re-test, and we emailed the certificate and readings across. We slotted the visit into a quiet Monday to suit the foreman.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Burnham-on-Sea 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 Isleport 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 Burnham-on-Sea 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.
Across most Burnham-on-Sea sites - the Isleport Business Park 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 Burnham-on-Sea 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 Burnham-on-Sea duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Highbridge Enterprise Centre 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.
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 Isleport Business Park and Highbridge Enterprise Centre and across the wider Somerset.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Burnham-on-Sea 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.
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 Isleport Business Park 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 Burnham-on-Sea, but an Isleport Business Park fabrication shop and an Abingdon 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 Isleport Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Isleport Business Park units, term-time access at the Burnham-on-Sea university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Burnham grew from a fishing hamlet into a Victorian bathing resort, and its trade has always turned on the tide and the produce of the Somerset Levels behind it. That agricultural hinterland still feeds the food factories and engineering units clustered around Isleport Business Park in Highbridge, 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. From a chilled food line to a welding bay, the airflow has to do what its paperwork claims.
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