Canterbury · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Canterbury workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic Kent cathedral city of around 55,000, home to the UNESCO World Heritage cathedral and to three universities - the University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University and the University for the Creative Arts.
The signature trade is teaching and research - the university and hospital laboratories of the city, the food and hospitality trade, and the light engineering and steel fabrication - across the Wincheap Industrial Estate and Vauxhall Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Canterbury processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Wincheap Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Canterbury workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Canterbury employers and others across Kent it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing across the bioscience and chemistry laboratories of the universities, the defining institutions of the city, where wet-chemistry benches are examined to their safe working face under COSHH.
Fume-cupboard and clinical-extract testing across the pathology and histology labs of the city hospital, where containment is examined to the face velocity the work demands.
Steam, mist and oven-fume extraction across the tourist-trade restaurants, the food hall and the brewpub, where cooking fume and grease need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Wincheap Industrial Estate and Vauxhall Road units, including the steel stockholding and fabrication trade. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Canterbury 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 EKC Canterbury College and the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Canterbury
We are out under Canterbury's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A university teaching laboratory in Canterbury had a fume cupboard failing to hold its face velocity across the sash opening, letting solvent vapour drift back into the lab. We ran the face-velocity traverse across the sash, checked the alarm set-point and logged the containment fault. It failed on the low face velocity, and we specified the fan and control work. The bench ran wet chemistry, so the containment was examined to its safe working face before the students returned.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Canterbury 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 Wincheap 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 Canterbury line.
Where exposure is in question - a university teaching and research laboratories 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 Canterbury sites, from the Wincheap 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 Canterbury 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 Canterbury duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Vauxhall Road 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 university teaching and research laboratories bay, a hospital and pathology laboratories bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Wincheap 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Canterbury 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Wincheap Industrial Estate and Vauxhall Road Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
University teaching and research laboratories, hospital and pathology laboratories, food, drink and hospitality, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Wincheap Industrial Estate and Vauxhall Road Industrial Estate and across the wider Kent.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Wincheap Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Canterbury university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Canterbury, but a Wincheap Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a St George's Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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