Kidsgrove · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Kidsgrove workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Kidsgrove
Kidsgrove sits at the northern tip of the Staffordshire Potteries, a former coal-mining town of around twenty-three thousand people on the border with Cheshire in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Its name is written into canal history: the Harecastle Tunnel, James Brindley's mile-and-a-half bore of 1777 and Thomas Telford's second tunnel of 1827, drives under the hill here to carry the Trent and Mersey Canal towards the sea.
Its working economy runs on engineering, ceramics and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at the Nelson Industrial Estate off West Avenue and the High Carr Network Centre beside the A500 and A34.
Wherever a Kidsgrove 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 Nelson Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Kidsgrove 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 Kidsgrove employers and others across Staffordshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Clay, glaze and body-dust extraction in the pottery and tile shops that ring Kidsgrove on the edge of the Potteries, alongside coolant-mist and oil-mist control on the CNC machining centres in the units at High Carr and the Nelson Industrial Estate.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers across Kidsgrove and the Chatterley Valley employment sites, where extraction keeps airborne dust and vapour off the shop floor.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Kidsgrove 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 High Carr and Nelson 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 Kidsgrove and Talke bodyshops along the A34 corridor. 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 college labs, testing houses and quality suites of the local ceramics and engineering firms, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Kidsgrove
We are out under Kidsgrove's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A privately owned nail bar in Kidsgrove had downdraught benches under-performing against benchmark, with a fan not reaching its rated speed behind it. Scheduling the visit for a Monday, while the salon was shut, I measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and checked over the fan and filter. Once a slipping belt was sorted every point passed on re-test, and I handed over full test documentation for their file.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Kidsgrove 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 Nelson 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 Kidsgrove line.
Where exposure is in question - a ceramics and precision 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.
On most Kidsgrove sites - the Nelson Industrial Estate units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Kidsgrove 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 Kidsgrove duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the High Carr Network Centre 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 ceramics and precision 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 Kidsgrove, but a Nelson Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a The Avenue 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 Nelson Industrial Estate or a smaller Kidsgrove workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Nelson 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. 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 Nelson Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Nelson Industrial Estate and High Carr Network Centre, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Staffordshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Nelson Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Kidsgrove university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Birchenwood Colliery opened in the 1890s on the eastern edge of Kidsgrove, and its gas and coke works became the last great industrial site in the town, a sprawl of collieries, blast furnaces, rolling mills, clay pits and brickworks that only fell silent after the Second World War. That heavy-industry instinct still runs through Kidsgrove's engineering and ceramics shops, 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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