Ferndown · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Ferndown workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Ferndown
Ferndown is an affluent commuter and retirement town in Dorset, set just north of Bournemouth and Poole and about four miles east of Wimborne Minster, that grew out of open heathland into a town of some 28,000 people. Its best-known landmark is Ferndown Golf Club, a championship heathland course laid out among towering pines back in 1913.
Its working economy is anchored by the Ferndown Industrial Estate and the neighbouring Uddens Trading Estate, together one of the largest industrial areas in East Dorset, home to precision, electronics and fabrication firms and to Farrow and Ball's paint works.
Every one of those Ferndown 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 Ferndown Industrial Estate units to the smaller Ferndown workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Ferndown employers and others across Dorset it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops across the Ferndown Industrial Estate, where precision and electronics firms work metal to fine tolerances along Cobham Road.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers packed into the estate units, where humid air and airborne dust have to be drawn off at the source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Ferndown 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 Ferndown Industrial Estate and Uddens units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Ferndown 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 test houses and laboratories on the estate, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Ferndown
We are out under Ferndown's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A small bodyshop in Ferndown had a spray booth performing below benchmark, with a leaking flexible connection at the heart of it. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. On re-test the LEV passed across the spray booth and the shop had a compliance report ready for its HSE file. The workshop manager was also handed a short photo report for their own audit folder.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Ferndown system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Ferndown 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 Ferndown 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 the great majority of Ferndown sites, from the Ferndown 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 Ferndown 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 Ferndown duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Uddens Trading 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.
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 Ferndown, but a Ferndown Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Penny's Walk canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Ferndown Industrial Estate and Uddens Trading Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Dorset.
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 Ferndown Industrial Estate and Uddens Trading Estate and across the wider Dorset.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Ferndown 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.
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 Ferndown Industrial Estate or a smaller Ferndown workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Ferndown Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Ferndown university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Farrow and Ball has been mixing paint one batch at a time at the Uddens estate on the edge of Ferndown since 1946, one of the last traditional paint and wallpaper makers left in Britain, and precision, electronics and fabrication firms have gathered around it ever since. Together the Ferndown Industrial Estate and Uddens Trading Estate form one of the largest industrial areas in East Dorset, and every workshop in them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. That duty falls on the employer, not the machine operator, and it does not lapse between services. 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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