Garforth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Garforth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Garforth
Garforth sits about seven miles east of Leeds, a town of roughly seventeen thousand people that grew from a farming village into a coalfield community and then into a commuter town on the edge of the city. Its name is bound up with coal: the Gascoigne family of Parlington Hall sank the pit shafts here from the 1830s, and worked seams that had first been dug as far back as the thirteenth century.
Its working economy today runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the industrial units on the Lotherton Industrial Estate and at Cherry Trade Park, a short run from Junction 47 of the M1.
Every Garforth 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 Lotherton Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Garforth units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Garforth and the wider West Yorkshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops across the Lotherton Industrial Estate units, an engineering instinct Garforth inherited from the winding gear and pit machinery that once kept the Gascoigne collieries running.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, butchers and food units that supply the town's supermarkets and its Main Street trade.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Garforth joinery works 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 Lotherton Industrial Estate and Cherry Trade 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 Garforth bodyshops off Aberford Road and Selby 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 Garforth Academy and the testing and inspection firms on the estates, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Garforth
We are out under Garforth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A joinery workshop in Garforth had wood-dust capture hoods falling short of benchmark, with the fault sitting in a worn fan impeller. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke at every point and stripped the fan and filter down for a look. Clearing the blocked filter brought all the readings back into line on re-test, and the report changed hands as we finished up. We came in early each morning ahead of the shopfloor so the saws could run as normal once everyone arrived.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Garforth 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 Lotherton 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 Garforth 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.
Across most Garforth sites - the Lotherton 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 Garforth 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 Garforth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Cherry Trade Park 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 Lotherton Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Garforth university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Lotherton Industrial Estate or a smaller Garforth workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Lotherton 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.
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 Garforth, but a Lotherton Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Ninelands Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Lotherton Industrial Estate and Cherry Trade Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Yorkshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Garforth 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.
Local knowledge
The opening of the Aire and Calder Navigation in 1700 gave the local coal a route to market, and from the 1830s the Gascoigne family sank a run of pits across Garforth, among them the Isabella pit on Ash Lane, named after the eldest of the colliery owner's daughters. Working those seams demanded winding engines, pumps and fabrication, and that engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and estate units. Every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust 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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