Crowborough · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Crowborough workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Crowborough
Crowborough sits high on the northern edge of Ashdown Forest, the highest town in the High Weald and one of the highest in the whole South East, its Beacon reaching some 240 metres above the sea. The town grew as a Victorian health resort, sold to Londoners for its clean, invigorating air and rolling heather until estate agents nicknamed it the Scotland of Sussex.
That resort town now carries a working economy of light manufacturing, plastics, joinery and the rural trades, much of it grouped in the units off Farningham Road beside the railway and up at Jarvis Brook.
Every one of those Crowborough 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 Farningham Road Industrial Estate units to the smaller Crowborough workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Crowborough and the rest of East Sussex it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on machining and finishing lines in the light-industrial units at Farningham Road and the Wealden Business Park, where metalwork throws off airborne mist that has to be captured at the machine.
Steam canopies and flour and powder control at Crowborough's food producers, including the artisan makers around Farningham Road who supply the town's shops and delis.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the town cabinet shops and joinery works serving the Wealden building trade, where hardwood and MDF dust is drawn off at the tool before it can reach the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Farningham Road and Lexden Lodge units. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume in 2019, all of it, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Crowborough bodyshops and vehicle repairers. 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 science laboratories at Beacon Academy and the town health centre, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Crowborough
We are out under Crowborough's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A busy bodyshop in Crowborough had lost control at the paint line, the booth held back by a partly blocked filter on the unit. We checked static pressure, cleared debris from the ducting and re-tested each point against benchmark. Once a loose joint was sorted every point passed on re-test, backed by a thorough examination and test certificate. We completed it over two evenings after closing to keep disruption down.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Crowborough 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 Farningham Road 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 Crowborough 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 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 Crowborough sites, from the Farningham Road 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 Crowborough 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 Crowborough duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Lexden Lodge 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 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Farningham Road Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Crowborough 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 Crowborough, but a Farningham Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Crowborough Hill canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Farningham Road Industrial Estate and Lexden Lodge Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Sussex.
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 Farningham Road Industrial Estate 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 Farningham Road 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.
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 Farningham Road Industrial Estate and Lexden Lodge Industrial Estate and across the wider East Sussex.
Local knowledge
Crowborough came of age when the railway arrived in 1868 and turned a scatter of forest-edge cottages into a busy Victorian town, its air famously clean at 240 metres up. That same high, open ground now carries the town's light-industrial units off Farningham Road and up at Jarvis Brook, where plastics, engineering and the fabrication trades all throw off mist, fume and dust. Each of those workshops carries a duty to control what its work puts into the air its people breathe. 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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