Hessle · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hessle workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hessle
Hessle sits on the north bank of the Humber immediately west of Hull, and its skyline is dominated by the Humber Bridge, opened by the Queen in 1981 and for sixteen years the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world. For all its commuter calm today, this is a town whose name was made by chalk, shipbuilding and the estuary at its feet.
Its working economy now runs on engineering, the fabrication trades and food production, much of it grouped in the units along Livingstone Road and in the offices and workshops around Hesslewood, hard by the A63 and the bridge approach.
Wherever a Hessle 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 Waterside Business Park units down to the smallest Hessle workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Hessle and the rest of East Riding of Yorkshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops across the Waterside Business Park units on Livingstone Road, feeding the wider Hull and Humber engineering cluster a few miles east.
Steam canopies, oven extraction and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food producers and packing units that supply Hessle and the Hull conurbation on its doorstep.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Hessle joinery and cabinet shops, a trade with deep local roots in the boatbuilding yards that once lined Hessle Haven, 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 Livingstone Road and Hessle Haven workshops that inherited the town shipyard tradition. Since the HSE reclassification in 2019, all welding fume, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Hessle bodyshops, fitting for a town whose old whiting works ground chalk into the very paint trade. 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 laboratories, training centres and technical units around Hessle and the Hesslewood office park, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hessle
We are out under Hessle's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The fabrication-bench extraction at a family-owned Hessle blacksmith's forge wasn't pulling as it should, the cause a poorly sealed duct joint. I checked the static pressure, replaced the tired filter and re-tested each point against the benchmark. The system met control standards once the unsealed joint was cleared, and I emailed the certificate and readings over. Staff were stock-taking and happily worked around us.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Hessle system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Waterside 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 Hessle 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.
For most Hessle sites - from the Waterside 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 Hessle 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 Hessle duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Hesslewood Office 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.
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 Hessle, but a Waterside Business Park fabrication shop and a Prestongate 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 Waterside Business Park or a smaller Hessle workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Waterside Business Park and Hesslewood Office Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Riding of Yorkshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Waterside Business Park units, term-time access at the Hessle university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Waterside Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Waterside 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
Shipbuilding at Hessle Haven ran for well over a century, from wooden boats through the iron and steel vessels of Henry Scarr to Richard Dunston, who took the yard over in 1932 and launched hundreds of trawlers and small ships from the inlet before it finally closed in 1994. That fabrication instinct still runs through the town's engineering and welding shops, 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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