Ledbury · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Ledbury workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Ledbury
Ledbury is a black-and-white timbered market town of around 9,600 in eastern Herefordshire, set below the Malvern Hills and known for its 17th-century Market House standing on oak pillars in the middle of the High Street.
The signature trade is cider and craft - the cider and beverage production, the joinery and woodworking, and the agricultural and food processing - across the New Mills Industrial Estate and Bankside estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Ledbury processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the New Mills Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Ledbury workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Ledbury employers and others across Herefordshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Steam, fermentation-vapour and bottling-line extraction across the cider and drinks producers that give Herefordshire its name - the town sits in cider country, with major bottling on Little Marcle Road and Westons at nearby Much Marcle. Process heat and vapour load the ductwork and need capture at source.
Wood-dust extraction and LEV testing across the joinery shops and cabinet-makers of the estates. Hardwood dust is a recognised carcinogen under COSHH, so the extraction on every saw, sander and bench is tested to its capture velocity.
Cold-store condensate, wash-down mist and cooking-vapour extraction across the chilled-food and produce-packing units serving the surrounding Herefordshire orchards and farms, where the process moisture and cooking fume each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the New Mills Industrial Estate and Bankside units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Ledbury 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 John Masefield High School and Hereford County Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Ledbury
We are out under Ledbury's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An upholstery workshop in Ledbury had its dust-extraction hoods under-performing against benchmark, with a slipping fan drive belt. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter, then replaced the belt and re-checked. All points passed on re-test once the belt was sorted, and we issued a full LEV report for the COSHH file.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Ledbury 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 New Mills 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 Ledbury line.
Where exposure is in question - a cider and beverage production 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.
On most Ledbury sites - the New Mills 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 Ledbury 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 Ledbury duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Bankside 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 cider and beverage production bay, a joinery and woodworking 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 Ledbury, but a New Mills Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street 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 New Mills 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the New Mills Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Ledbury university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Ledbury 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 New Mills Industrial Estate and Bankside Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Herefordshire.
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 New Mills Industrial Estate or a smaller Ledbury workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Ledbury's Market House has stood on sixteen oak pillars in the middle of the High Street since building began around 1617, the work of the King's Carpenter John Abel, and it is still the only Herefordshire market house kept in its original position. Abel raised it on posts so the market could trade in any weather; the trades beneath it now - joinery, cider and metalwork - throw off dust, vapour and fume that local exhaust ventilation has to capture at source, each system tested to its capture velocity under COSHH.
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