Hindley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hindley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hindley
Hindley is a former coal and cotton town in the Wigan borough of Greater Manchester, sitting at the very centre of the great Lancashire coalfield where more than twenty collieries once worked the ground beneath it. Its population grew from around 2,300 in 1811 to some 24,000 by 1911 as pits and mills turned a farming village into a dense industrial town, and it remains best known today for the brick parish church of All Saints, rebuilt in 1766, and for HMP Hindley out at Bickershaw.
Its working economy now runs on manufacturing, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Hindley Green Business Park on Leigh Road and the Swan Lane Industrial Estate.
Each of those Hindley processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Hindley Green Business Park units to the one-bench Hindley workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Hindley and the rest of Greater Manchester it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC lathes and machining centres in the engineering units at Hindley Green Business Park and Swan Lane, the modern heirs to a town that once machined and maintained the winding gear of the Lancashire coalfield.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control across the bakeries, butchery and chilled-food lines of the Wigan borough, from small Hindley food units to the large ready-meal producers such as Bakkavor that employ hundreds nearby.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Hindley joinery shops and cabinet-makers, 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 Swan Lane Industrial Estate and the Hindley Green fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Hindley bodyshops along Atherton Road and the Wigan 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 and training workshops of Wigan and Leigh College and the borough's schools, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hindley
We are out under Hindley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a small blacksmith's forge in Hindley, the fume extraction arms above the fabrication bench had lost their pull, and a slipping fan drive belt turned out to be the cause. Working on a Sunday with the workshop shut, we measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each hood and opened up the fan and filter. Clearing a blocked filter brought the system back within control standards. The written report was handed to them before we packed up.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Hindley 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 Hindley Green 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 Hindley line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
For most Hindley sites - from the Hindley Green 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 Hindley 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 Hindley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Swan Lane 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 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.
precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Hindley Green Business Park and Swan Lane Industrial Estate and across the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Hindley Green Business Park or a smaller Hindley 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 Hindley, but a Hindley Green Business Park fabrication shop and a Ladies Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hindley Green Business Park units, term-time access at the Hindley 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 Hindley Green 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.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Hindley 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
Hindley sits at the very centre of the Lancashire coalfield, and by the end of the nineteenth century more than twenty collieries worked the ground beneath it, among them the Wigan Coal and Iron Company's Ladies Lane pit, which employed 282 men underground in 1896. Peak output came just before the First World War, before the pits closed one after another between the wars. That heavy-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and fabrication units, 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 so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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