Failsworth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Failsworth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Failsworth
Failsworth sits on the old Manchester-to-Oldham road, midway between the two, a Greater Manchester town of around twenty thousand people best known for the Failsworth Pole - the landmark maypole and clock tower that has marked the centre of the town since 1793. It made its name in hats, cotton and electrical engineering, and it still works for a living.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the converted mills and modern units at Sandfield Business Park and the Hollinwood Business Centre near the M60.
Wherever a Failsworth 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 Sandfield Business Park units down to the smallest Failsworth workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Failsworth employers and others across Greater Manchester it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and grinders, from the Ferranti electrical-engineering heritage at Hollinwood to the precision shops and toolmakers working out of the Sandfield and Hollinwood units today.
Steam canopies, oven extraction and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers around Hollinwood and Failsworth, where heat, moisture and airborne dust all have to be drawn off the floor.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Failsworth cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Sandfield Business Park and Hollinwood 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 the bodyshops off Oldham Road and Ashton Road. 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 college teaching labs and the manufacturing quality labs around Hollinwood, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Failsworth
We are out under Failsworth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A Failsworth monumental mason had lost capture velocity at several cutting-bench hoods, with debris built up in the ducting behind it. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the dust capture hoods, sorted the tired filter and re-checked each point. Once the ducting was cleared everything passed on re-test, and we emailed the certificate and readings across. To avoid disruption we worked a single overnight shift so the workshop opened as normal.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Failsworth 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 Sandfield 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 Failsworth 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
For most Failsworth sites - from the Sandfield Business Park units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Failsworth 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 Failsworth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Hollinwood Business 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Sandfield Business Park units, term-time access at the Failsworth 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 Failsworth, but a Sandfield Business Park fabrication shop and a Pole Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Sandfield Business Park and Hollinwood Business Centre, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Failsworth 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.
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 Sandfield Business Park and Hollinwood Business Centre and across the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Sandfield Business Park or a smaller Failsworth workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
In 1896 Sebastian de Ferranti moved his electrical-engineering works to Hollinwood on the Failsworth boundary, and through the twentieth century the Ferranti transformer and instrument works grew into one of the district's largest employers, its winding shops and test bays humming beside the railway. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through Failsworth's machine shops and the manufacturers in the old Hollinwood mills, and every one of them carries a duty to control the oil mist, weld fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation so the extraction reads true against its design figures, sampling at the hood and tracing the fault when a reading falls short. The result is a system that protects the people working under it, not just a certificate in a folder.
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