Loughborough · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Loughborough workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Loughborough
Loughborough is a Leicestershire university town of around 65,000, home to one of the UK's largest single-site campuses and to John Taylor's, the world's largest working bell foundry.
The signature trade is heavy engineering - the turbine and transformer manufacturing of the Brush heritage, the rail traction and rolling-stock, and the life-science and pharma research - across the Falcon Business Park and Belton Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Loughborough process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Falcon Business Park plant to the single-bench Loughborough units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Loughborough and the rest of Leicestershire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Weld-fume, machining-mist and coating extraction across the transformer and turbine manufacturing lines, a trade rooted in the town's heavy-engineering heritage, where metal fume and vapour need capture at source.
Grinding, weld-fume and paint extraction across the rail-traction and rolling-stock units, where metal dust and fume need capture proven.
Solvent, vapour and fume extraction across the life-science and pharma research units, where process vapour needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Falcon Business Park and Belton 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 Loughborough 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 science and engineering labs of Loughborough University and Loughborough Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Loughborough
We are out under Loughborough's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A heavy electrical-engineering works in Loughborough had a weld-fume extraction arm on a transformer-fabrication bay drooping short of the joint because its internal spine had cracked. We clamped the arm to hold position, measured the capture at the tip and logged the mechanical fault. It passed on the airflow but failed on the arm's positioning integrity, so the hood could not be held over the weld. Since the HSE reclassified all welding fume as carcinogenic in 2019, on-torch capture was checked alongside the arm.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Loughborough 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 Falcon 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 Loughborough line.
Where exposure is in question - a heavy electrical and turbine engineering process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Loughborough sites - the Falcon Business Park 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 Loughborough 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 Loughborough duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Belton 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 heavy electrical and turbine engineering bay, a rail traction and rolling-stock bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Falcon Business Park units, term-time access at the Loughborough university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Falcon Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Loughborough 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.
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 Falcon Business Park or a smaller Loughborough workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Loughborough, but a Falcon Business Park fabrication shop and a Market Place canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Falcon Business Park and Belton Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Leicestershire.
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