Jarrow · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Jarrow workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Jarrow
Jarrow is a South Tyneside town of around 27,000 people on the south bank of the Tyne, a name written into British history twice over - as the home of the Venerable Bede, who completed the first history of the English people at its monastery around 731, and as the starting point of the 1936 Jarrow Crusade, when 200 men marched to London against the unemployment left by the closure of Palmers shipyard.
Its working economy today runs on manufacturing, food processing and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Bede Industrial Estate and Viking Business Park, a mile from the Tyne Tunnel and the A19 that feed the Nissan supply chain and the Port of Tyne.
Wherever a Jarrow 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 Bede Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Jarrow workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Jarrow employers and others across Tyne and Wear it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes across the Bede Industrial Estate and Viking Business Park units, including the component makers that feed the Nissan supply chain up the A19.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food-processing plants on Viking Business Park, where extraction keeps heat, moisture and dust off the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Jarrow joinery and cabinet shops, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches in the fabrication units that carry on the town's shipbuilding trade. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Jarrow 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 science labs at South Tyneside College and local clinical and industrial labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Jarrow
We are out under Jarrow's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the machine tool enclosures in a family-run engineering shop in Jarrow had dropped since the last test, pointing to a partly blocked filter on the unit. We recorded benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with a loose joint. One point failed on the joint at first and passed after remedial work, with the benchmark readings logged and reported. We timed it for the school holidays while the shop was quiet.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Jarrow 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 Bede 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 Jarrow 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
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 Jarrow sites - from the Bede Industrial Estate 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 Jarrow 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 Jarrow duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Viking Business 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.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Bede Industrial Estate and Viking Business Park and across the wider Tyne and Wear.
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 Jarrow, but a Bede Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Grange Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Bede 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.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Jarrow 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bede Industrial Estate and Viking Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Tyne and Wear.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bede Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Jarrow university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Charles Mark Palmer launched the John Bowes at Jarrow in 1852, the first practical iron screw collier, and the yard grew into Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, building warships and merchant ships on the Tyne and employing much of the town until it closed in 1933. That fabrication and precision-engineering instinct still runs through Jarrow's machine shops and manufacturing 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 to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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