Hailsham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hailsham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hailsham
Hailsham is an East Sussex market town of around 21,000 people in the Wealden district, and a place the trade once called the Sussex String Town - Thomas Burfield began spinning rope and string behind his High Street saddlery in 1807, and by tradition the hangman's rope itself was made here.
Its working economy now runs on precision engineering, the agricultural trades and light manufacturing, much of it grouped in the units at the Diplocks Way and Station Road industrial estates on the edge of town.
Every Hailsham 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 Diplocks Way Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Hailsham units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Hailsham and across East Sussex it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC machining centres at the Diplocks Way precision shops, where firms like APPS Precision and Metaltech turn metal to close tolerances and the mist has to be captured at the spindle.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Hailsham's bakeries and the food producers that grew up around the town's livestock market and the surrounding Wealden farms.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the joinery and cabinet workshops on the Station Road and Diplocks Way estates, where hardwood and MDF dust is drawn off at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Diplocks Way fabrication and agricultural-engineering units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Hailsham 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 local college laboratories and the town's testing and inspection firms, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hailsham
We are out under Hailsham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Face velocity across the mist extraction hoods at a family-run Hailsham machine shop was reading low, traced to a leaking flexible connection. We checked static pressure, sorted a slipping drive belt and re-tested every point against benchmark. One hood failed at first on a tired filter and passed once that was renewed, all recorded in a signed report. Access was tight, so we loaded in through the back to reach the far hoods.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Hailsham 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 Diplocks Way 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 Hailsham 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
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
Across most Hailsham sites - the Diplocks Way 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 Hailsham 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 Hailsham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Station Road 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. 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.
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 Diplocks Way Industrial Estate or a smaller Hailsham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Hailsham, but a Diplocks Way Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a George Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Diplocks Way Industrial Estate and Station Road Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Sussex.
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 Diplocks Way Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Diplocks Way Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Hailsham university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Diplocks Way 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.
Local knowledge
Thomas Burfield set up his saddlery on the High Street in 1780 and by 1807 was spinning his own rope and string along a walk behind the shop, giving Hailsham its old nickname of the Sussex String Town. A rival, Green Brothers, followed in 1830, and the two firms wove hemp along rope walks off South Road and Summerheath Road for well over a century, turning out tents, camp beds and canvas through both world wars. That making-and-machining instinct still runs through the precision shops on the Diplocks Way estate, and 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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