Gosport · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Gosport workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Gosport
Gosport is a Hampshire harbour town of around 82,000 on Portsmouth Harbour, with deep Royal Navy submarine heritage and the Solent Airport Daedalus enterprise zone.
The work is marine and defence - the marine and naval engineering, the marine electronics and boatbuilding, and the aviation and aerospace maintenance at Daedalus - across the Heritage Business Park and Fort Brockhurst estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Gosport 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 Heritage Business Park units to the smaller Gosport 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 Gosport employers and others across Hampshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Weld-fume, grinding and paint extraction across the marine and naval-engineering units, a trade rooted in Gosport's submarine heritage, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
Solder-fume, resin and dust extraction across the marine-electronics and boatbuilding lines, where fume and composite dust need capture proven.
Solvent, paint and composite-dust extraction across the Daedalus aviation and aerospace maintenance units, where fume and dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Heritage Business Park and Fort Brockhurst units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Gosport 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 St Vincent College and Gosport War Memorial Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Gosport
We are out under Gosport's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A marine electronics and radar repair workshop in Gosport had a bench soldering-fume micro-extraction manifold running weak because operators had taped over several extraction slots to cut the noise. We removed the unapproved tape, re-balanced the inline branch dampers and checked the individual tip capture velocities. It failed with the modifications in place and passed cleanly once the tape was off and the flow was back to its original configuration. The site worked on naval defence electronics, so phones and data loggers had to be registered at the front gate.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Gosport system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Heritage 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 Gosport line.
Where exposure is in question - a marine and naval engineering 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 Gosport sites - from the Heritage 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 Gosport 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 Gosport duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Fort Brockhurst 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 marine and naval engineering bay, a marine electronics and boatbuilding bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Heritage Business Park and Fort Brockhurst, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hampshire.
Marine and naval engineering, marine electronics and boatbuilding, aviation and aerospace, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Heritage Business Park and Fort Brockhurst and across the wider Hampshire.
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 Heritage Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Gosport 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.
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 Gosport, but a Heritage Business Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Heritage Business Park or a smaller Gosport workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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