Kempston · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Kempston workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Kempston
Kempston sits on the River Great Ouse immediately south-west of Bedford, a place that grew from a scatter of farming hamlets - Up End, Bell End, Wood End and Box End - into one of the county's larger towns, now home to more than twenty thousand people. Its best-known landmark is Kempston Barracks, the castle-like Keep built in 1874 as the depot of the Bedfordshire Regiment, where over forty thousand men signed up during the First World War.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units of the Woburn Road Industrial Estate and the newer logistics sheds at Bell Farm Way close to the A421.
Wherever a Kempston 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 Woburn Road Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Kempston workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Kempston and across Bedfordshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops, in a town whose engineering roots run back to the Igranic electrical control-gear works on Elstow Road and the pump and steam-engine trade W.H. Allen built at Queen's Engineering Works in neighbouring Bedford.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and food-production units around the Woburn Road estate, where heat, moisture and airborne dust all have to be drawn off at source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Kempston cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Woburn Road and Bell Farm units. Since the HSE reclassification in 2019, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Kempston 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 laboratories, teaching rooms and quality-control benches across the town, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Kempston
We are out under Kempston's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the solvent extraction hoods in a busy Kempston print shop had fallen away since the last test, pointing to a filter well overdue for replacement. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. With the unsealed joint cleared the system met its control standards. We emailed the certificate and readings over, and set up a recurring annual clean to stay on top of it.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Kempston system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Woburn Road 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 Kempston 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.
For the great majority of Kempston sites, from the Woburn Road Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Kempston 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 Kempston duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Bell Farm Way 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 Kempston, but a Woburn Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Hillgrounds Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Woburn Road Industrial Estate and Bell Farm Way, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Bedfordshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Kempston 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. 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 Woburn Road Industrial Estate 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 Woburn Road 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.
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 Woburn Road Industrial Estate and Bell Farm Way and across the wider Bedfordshire.
Local knowledge
The Igranic Electric Company ran its works on Elstow Road for decades, building electrical starters and steel-mill and crane control gear and employing more than two thousand people at its peak before the trade passed through Brookhurst Igranic, Cutler-Hammer and Eaton and finally closed. That precision-engineering instinct, shared with the W.H. Allen pump and diesel works just over the river in Bedford, still runs through Kempston's machine shops and fabrication units. 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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