Horley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Horley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Horley
Horley sits on the River Mole at the very edge of Surrey, a Reigate and Banstead town whose northern boundary all but touches the runways of Gatwick Airport. It grew from three small hamlets scattered around a great open common, and at its heart stands Ye Olde Six Bells, built around 1450 and reckoned the oldest surviving building in the town.
Its working economy runs on Gatwick - airport logistics, aviation support and hotels - alongside the engineering, food and fabrication units grouped on the Gatwick Metro Centre and the Bridge Industrial Estate off Balcombe Road.
Every Horley 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 Gatwick Metro Centre plant to the single-bench Horley 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 Horley and across Surrey it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC and machining work that feeds Gatwick, from ground-equipment and component shops to the aviation-support engineering units on the Gatwick Metro Centre and Axiom Business Park off Balcombe Road.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Horley bakeries and the volume airline and airport catering kitchens that supply Gatwick, where large-batch cooking throws off heat, grease and vapour that has to be drawn away at source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Horley cabinet shops and joinery works on the Bridge Industrial Estate, 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 Gatwick Metro Centre and Bridge Industrial Estate units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Horley bodyshops and the vehicle and plant workshops serving Gatwick traffic. 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 testing, calibration and technical units clustered around the airport and the borough, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Horley
We are out under Horley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a much-loved blacksmith's forge in Horley, capture at the fume extraction arms had dropped below benchmark thanks to debris building up in the ducting. We recorded face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and looked over the fan and filter. Once an unsealed joint was sorted the capture came back within benchmark. The report was handed over on completion, the work scheduled for a Monday when the bay was closed.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Horley 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 Gatwick Metro Centre 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 Horley line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and aviation support 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 Horley sites - from the Gatwick Metro Centre 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 Horley 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 Horley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Bridge 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 aviation support 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Gatwick Metro Centre and Bridge Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Surrey.
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 Gatwick Metro Centre unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Gatwick Metro Centre units, term-time access at the Horley university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
precision engineering and aviation support, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Gatwick Metro Centre and Bridge Industrial Estate and across the wider Surrey.
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 Horley, but a Gatwick Metro Centre fabrication shop and a Consort Way 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 Gatwick Metro Centre or a smaller Horley workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Horley crept along at a village pace until the London to Brighton railway was laid through it in 1841 and a station opened on the main line, and then it grew again on the back of Gatwick in the twentieth century. That railway-and-airport pull turned the town into a base for aviation-support engineering, ground-equipment shops and precision component work, all of it throwing off mist, fume and dust. Every one of those workshops carries a duty to control what its machines put into the air. 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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