Clitheroe · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Clitheroe workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Clitheroe
Clitheroe is the principal market town of the Ribble Valley, home to around 16,600 people and crowned by a Norman keep - reckoned one of the smallest surviving in England - on its limestone knoll above the town.
The working town runs out from the centre to Salthill Industrial Estate off Lincoln Way and Barrow Brook Business Park on the A59, where general engineering, joinery, food production and vehicle trades sit alongside the limestone and cement industry that has shaped Ribblesdale for generations.
Wherever a Clitheroe 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 Salthill Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Clitheroe workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Clitheroe and across Lancashire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Wood-dust extraction for the joinery and cabinet workshops on Salthill Industrial Estate, capturing hardwood, softwood and MDF dust at the machine - all carry a workplace exposure limit and are treated as hazardous under COSHH.
Mist and coolant extraction on the lathes and mills of the Ribble Valley's general engineering firms, holding metalworking-fluid mist below the level that inflames airways.
Flour, dust and vapour capture for the bakeries, butchers and Ribble Valley food producers that supply Clitheroe's three-day market and the region's farm shops.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Salthill Industrial Estate and Barrow Brook 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 Clitheroe 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 Clitheroe Royal Grammar School and Clitheroe Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Clitheroe
We are out under Clitheroe's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A print shop in Clitheroe had the capture velocity at some of its press-side solvent extraction drop below benchmark, with a filter well overdue for change. We checked static pressure, cleared the blocked filter and re-tested each point against its benchmark. One point failed at first and passed after the remedial work, and we issued a signed HSG258 report. The presses ran solvent inks, so the vapour capture was checked at each hood.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Clitheroe 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 Salthill 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 Clitheroe line.
Where exposure is in question - a woodworking and joinery 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.
On most Clitheroe sites - the Salthill Industrial Estate units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Clitheroe 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 Clitheroe duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Barrow Brook 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 woodworking and joinery bay, an engineering and machining 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 Salthill Industrial Estate or a smaller Clitheroe workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Salthill Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Clitheroe 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 Clitheroe, but a Salthill Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Castle Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Salthill Industrial Estate and Barrow Brook Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lancashire.
woodworking and joinery, engineering and machining, food and drink production, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and labs and fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Salthill Industrial Estate and Barrow Brook Business Park and across the wider Lancashire.
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 Salthill 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.
Local knowledge
Clitheroe Castle's stone keep was raised around 1186 by Robert de Lacy and is reckoned one of the smallest surviving Norman keeps in England, perched on a 35-metre knoll of Carboniferous limestone in the middle of town. That same rock still governs the local air: the trades that grew up beneath the castle - engineering, joinery and vehicle work - all throw off fume, dust and mist that local exhaust ventilation has to capture at source before it reaches a worker's lungs.
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