Formby · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Formby workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Formby
Formby is an affluent commuter town on the Sefton coast between Liverpool and Southport, its pinewoods and sand dunes sheltering one of the last strongholds of the native red squirrel anywhere in England. It is also where, in 1776, the world's first organised lifeboat station was set up on the shore, two centuries before the trade thought seriously about workplace air.
Behind the village the working economy is modest but real, gathered in the light-industrial units of Formby Business Park and the workshops along Altcar Road, where automotive, joinery and small-engineering trades run day to day.
Wherever a Formby 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 Formby Business Park units down to the smallest Formby 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 Formby and across Merseyside it stands as their COSHH evidence.
CNC and machine-shop work throws off oil mist and coolant mist, and the small-engineering units on Formby Business Park need that mist captured at source before it reaches the lungs of the people running the machines.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the village bakeries and food producers, in a town whose sandy soil once made it one of the great asparagus-growing districts of the North West.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the joinery and timber units around Altcar Road, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it drifts across the shop.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Formby 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 Formby's bodyshops and car-electrical units on Altcar 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 the science labs at Formby High School and the town's dental and veterinary practices, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Formby
We are out under Formby's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A privately owned bodyshop in Formby had airflow at the spray booth falling since the last test, which pointed to a fan not reaching its rated speed. We took benchmark readings, visualised the capture at each hood and dealt with the blocked filter. Every point passed on re-test once the unsealed joint was sorted, closed out with a signed HSG258 report. We worked a single overnight shift so the shop could open as normal.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Formby 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 Formby 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 Formby 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
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
Across most Formby sites - the Formby Business Park 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 Formby 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 Formby duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the the Altcar Road industrial units 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. 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 Formby Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Formby, but a Formby Business Park fabrication shop and a Chapel Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Formby 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Formby Business Park units, term-time access at the Formby university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Formby Business Park and the Altcar Road industrial units, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Merseyside.
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 Formby Business Park 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
In 1776 Liverpool Corporation stationed a Mersey gig on the Formby shore under dock master William Hutchinson, creating the first organised lifeboat station anywhere in the world after gales and shifting sandbanks had drowned scores of sailors at the mouth of the Mersey. Formby has understood since then that safety is a matter of preparation rather than luck, and the same principle governs the extraction that protects a modern workforce. Local exhaust ventilation only works if it is tested against its design figures and proven to carry the fume, mist and dust away. We examine and certify LEV to the standard COSHH sets, so the system reads true rather than merely looking the part.
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