Lewisham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Lewisham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Lewisham
Lewisham is a south-east London borough of around 300,000, home to Goldsmiths University at New Cross and Deptford's long-standing market and creative scene.
The work is light industry and creative trades - the light engineering and fabrication, the food manufacturing and wholesale, and the printing and maker workshops - across the Bromley Road and Surrey Canal Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Lewisham 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 Bromley Road units down to the smallest Lewisham 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 Lewisham and across Greater London it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the light-engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers and wholesale-meat units of the Deptford railway arches, where organic dust and vapour need capture proven.
Solvent, ink-mist and dust extraction across the screen-print and maker workshops, where VOC vapour and dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bromley Road and Surrey Canal Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Lewisham 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 Goldsmiths University and University Hospital Lewisham, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Lewisham
We are out under Lewisham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A college carpentry and furniture workshop in Lewisham had the main sawdust extraction ductwork choked with dense MDF shavings and a blast-gate damper seized at 45 degrees. We cleared the packed wood dust from the branch line, freed and lubricated the blast-gate slider and measured the transport velocity. It passed once cleared, at a safe 21 metres per second to stop further dropout. The college was closed for a bank holiday, so it needed keyholder access and coordination with security.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Lewisham system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Bromley Road 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 Lewisham line.
Where exposure is in question - a light engineering and fabrication 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 the great majority of Lewisham sites, from the Bromley Road 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 Lewisham 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 Lewisham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Surrey Canal Road 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 light engineering and fabrication bay, a food manufacturing and wholesale bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Bromley Road 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 Bromley Road or a smaller Lewisham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Lewisham 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 Bromley Road and Surrey Canal Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater London.
Light engineering and fabrication, food manufacturing and wholesale, printing and maker workshops, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Bromley Road and Surrey Canal Road and across the wider Greater London.
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 Bromley Road unit will ask to see.
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