Gravesend · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Gravesend workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Gravesend
Gravesend is a Thames-side town in Kent, the heart of a borough of around 107,000, the historic gateway to the Port of London where Pocahontas is buried.
The work is riverside and logistics - the engineering and metal fabrication of the cement and paper heritage, the Thames Gateway distribution, and the marine and wharf trades - across the Lower Range Road and Northfleet estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Gravesend 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 Lower Range Road plant to the single-bench Gravesend units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Gravesend and the rest of Kent it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Grinding, machining and weld-fume extraction across the engineering and fabrication units, a trade rooted in the north-Kent cement and paper heritage, where metal dust and fume need capture at source.
Battery-charging, weld-fume and paint extraction across the Thames Gateway distribution parks, where the maintenance and fabrication bays need capture proven.
Weld-fume, grinding and paint extraction across the riverside and wharf units, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Lower Range Road and Northfleet units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Gravesend 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 North Kent College Gravesend campus and Gravesham Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Gravesend
We are out under Gravesend's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A bulk chemical storage and packaging depot in Gravesend had a drum-venting extraction arm failing to catch solvent vapour because the volume-control damper had seized completely. We freed the seized mechanism with penetrating lubricant, released the control lever and balanced the branch flow. It passed once the damper was freed, with the face capture at an optimal 0.85 metres per second. It was an ATEX-rated zone, so non-sparking tools and intrinsically safe test instruments were used.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Gravesend 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 Lower Range Road 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 Gravesend line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and metal fabrication 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.
For most Gravesend sites - from the Lower Range Road 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 Gravesend 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 Gravesend duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Northfleet Industrial 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. An engineering and metal fabrication bay, a logistics and distribution bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Lower Range Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Lower Range Road or a smaller Gravesend workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Lower Range Road and Northfleet Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
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 Gravesend, but a Lower Range Road fabrication shop and a Windmill Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Gravesend 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.
Engineering and metal fabrication, logistics and distribution, marine and wharf trades, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Lower Range Road and Northfleet Industrial Estate and across the wider Kent.
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