Bury St Edmunds · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bury St Edmunds workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds is a historic cathedral and market town of around 41,000 in Suffolk, famous for its ruined Abbey and Abbey Gardens, St Edmundsbury Cathedral and the long-established brewery at its heart.
The signature trade is brewing and food - the brewing and malting, the sugar processing, and the food and flavour manufacturing - across the Suffolk Business Park and Moreton Hall Industrial Estate estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Bury St Edmunds 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 Suffolk Business Park units to the smaller Bury St Edmunds workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bury St Edmunds and the wider Suffolk it is your evidence under COSHH.
Steam, grain-dust and yeast-vapour extraction across the mashing, malting and fermentation floors of the town's iconic brewery, the defining trade of the town, where grain dust is a combustion risk and needs capture at source.
Steam, beet-dust and process-fume extraction across the sugar-beet processing plant, one of the largest in the country, where the handling and boiling lines need capture proven.
Solvent-vapour, essential-oil and process-fume extraction across the flavour and food-ingredient units, where the process vapour needs capture at source under containment.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Suffolk Business Park and Moreton Hall units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bury St Edmunds 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 West Suffolk College and the West Suffolk Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bury St Edmunds
We are out under Bury St Edmunds's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A brewery in Bury St Edmunds had a steam-and-grain-dust extraction over a mashing-and-malting floor pulling weak, letting grain dust and steam drift through the room. We measured the capture at the vessels and checked the ducting and fan for losses. It failed on the low capture and the dust breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. Grain dust is a combustion risk, so the housekeeping around the malt floor was logged alongside the airflow.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Bury St Edmunds 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 Suffolk 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 Bury St Edmunds line.
Where exposure is in question - a brewing and malting 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 Bury St Edmunds sites - the Suffolk 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 Bury St Edmunds 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 Bury St Edmunds duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Moreton Hall Industrial Estate 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 brewing and malting bay, a sugar processing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Suffolk Business Park or a smaller Bury St Edmunds workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Suffolk Business Park and Moreton Hall Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Suffolk.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bury St Edmunds 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 a Suffolk Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Suffolk 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 Suffolk Business Park units, term-time access at the Bury St Edmunds university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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