Featherstone · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Featherstone workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Featherstone
Featherstone is a former coal-mining town of around sixteen thousand people in the Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, set on the old coalfield between Pontefract and Normanton. Its name carries far further than its size: this is the home of Featherstone Rovers, the Colliers of Post Office Road, one of the last great small-town clubs in rugby league and the side that stunned Hull to lift the Challenge Cup in 1983.
Its working economy now runs on manufacturing, fabrication and logistics, much of it grouped in the units on the Green Lane Industrial Estate and the warehouses feeding the M62 Junction 32 corridor a short way north.
Every Featherstone process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Green Lane Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Featherstone units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Featherstone employers and others across West Yorkshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC machining and metalwork feeding the Green Lane Industrial Estate and the manufacturing units strung along the M62 Junction 32 corridor, the modern heirs of the engineering that once kept Featherstone's pits turning.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food units of the wider Wakefield district, where heat, moisture and airborne dust all have to be drawn off at source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Featherstone joinery and cabinet shops, 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 steel-fabrication and traffic-systems units on Green Lane and Boothroyds Way. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Featherstone 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 the science labs of the town's schools and the colleges of the wider Wakefield district, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Featherstone
We are out under Featherstone's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the downdraught nail benches in an established Featherstone salon had fallen since the last test, pointing to a filter well overdue for replacement. I ran velocity and smoke tests across the benches, put right the leaking connection and re-checked. The system met control standards once the debris in the ducting was cleared, and I left a signed HSG258 report. I worked around changeover so clients weren't disturbed.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Featherstone 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 Green Lane 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 Featherstone 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.
Across most Featherstone sites - the Green Lane Industrial Estate 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 Featherstone 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 Featherstone duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Phoenix 66 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.
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 Green Lane Industrial Estate and Phoenix 66 and across the wider West Yorkshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Featherstone 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.
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 Green Lane 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. 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 Green Lane Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Green Lane Industrial Estate or a smaller Featherstone workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Featherstone, but a Green Lane Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Girnhill Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
Coal was mined at Featherstone from the thirteenth century, but the town as it stands was built by the deep pits - Featherstone Main sunk in 1866 and Ackton Hall in 1873 - and the engineering trades that kept the winding gear, pumps and haulage running underground. That fitting-and-turning instinct outlived the collieries and still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units on the Green Lane Industrial Estate. Every one of them carries a duty to control the oil mist, dust and fume its work throws off. 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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