Kenilworth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Kenilworth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Kenilworth
Kenilworth is a Warwickshire market town of around 22,500 people, set between Coventry to the north-east and Warwick and Leamington Spa to the south, and dominated by the red sandstone ruins of Kenilworth Castle. The great fortress passed through King John, Simon de Montfort and John of Gaunt before Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, staged nineteen days of festivities there for Elizabeth I in the summer of 1575, the entertainment that inspired Sir Walter Scott's novel.
Today the town sits at the heart of the Coventry and Warwickshire automotive belt, with the University of Warwick, its WMG engineering arm and the National Automotive Innovation Centre a short drive south, while a working economy of precision engineering, fabrication and joinery fills the units at Holly Farm Business Park and the Cotton Drive Industrial Estate off Dalehouse Lane.
Every one of those Kenilworth processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Holly Farm Business Park units to the smaller Kenilworth workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Kenilworth and the rest of Warwickshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and grinders, from the measurement and precision shops at Cotton Drive Industrial Estate to the automotive supply chain feeding the University of Warwick's National Automotive Innovation Centre and the wider Jaguar Land Rover cluster.
Steam canopies, oven extraction and flour-dust control in the town's bakeries, kitchens and small food producers, where airborne flour is an explosion risk as well as a health one.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Kenilworth cabinetmakers and joinery workshops around Holly Farm Business Park, capturing hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Cotton Drive and Holly Farm units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Kenilworth bodyshops, in a county built on vehicle manufacture. 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 school science departments, testing houses and the research laboratories that ring the town, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Kenilworth
We are out under Kenilworth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A popular engineering shop in Kenilworth had low face velocity across its oil-mist extraction hoods, traced to a partly blocked filter on the unit. I checked the static pressure, cleared a leaking connection and re-tested each point against benchmark. The LEV passed on re-test across the mist hoods, and I handed over full test documentation. I timed the visit for the summer break while the shop was quiet.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Kenilworth 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 Holly Farm 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 Kenilworth 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 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.
Across most Kenilworth sites - the Holly Farm Business Park plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Kenilworth 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 Kenilworth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Cotton Drive 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 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 Kenilworth, but a Holly Farm Business Park fabrication shop and a Warwick Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Holly Farm Business Park units, term-time access at the Kenilworth university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Holly Farm Business Park and Cotton Drive Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Warwickshire.
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 Holly Farm 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 Holly Farm 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.
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 Holly Farm Business Park or a smaller Kenilworth workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Kenilworth sits inside the Coventry and Warwickshire engineering belt, and the University of Warwick's National Automotive Innovation Centre - a 33,000 square-metre research campus built with Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors - stands just south of the town. That precision-engineering instinct runs through the machine shops and measurement firms on the Cotton Drive Industrial Estate and the units at Holly Farm Business Park, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. From CNC coolant mist to weld fume and paint spray, the question is always the same: does the system pull what it is meant to, where the worker actually stands. 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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