Maltby · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Maltby workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Maltby
Maltby is a former coal-mining town of around 17,000 people in the Rotherham borough of South Yorkshire, grown almost overnight when Maltby Main Colliery sank its shafts in 1910 and the company built a 400-house model village to house the miners who arrived from Wales, Durham, Staffordshire and beyond. On its doorstep stands Roche Abbey, a ruined twelfth-century Cistercian monastery set in a valley later landscaped by Capability Brown.
Its working economy now runs on engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the industrial units at Aven Industrial Park on Tickhill Road and along Denby Way at nearby Hellaby.
Every Maltby 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 Aven Industrial Park plant to the single-bench Maltby 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 Maltby and the rest of South Yorkshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes in the units around Aven Industrial Park, carrying on the engineering skills the deep pit at Maltby Main once trained across the town.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food-production and cold-store units around Maltby and the Denby Way estate at Hellaby, where dust and vapour are captured before they settle.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Maltby joinery works and cabinet shops, 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 Aven Industrial Park and Denby Way units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Maltby bodyshops and MOT workshops. 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 labs at Maltby Academy and the training and inspection workshops that serve local employers, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Maltby
We are out under Maltby's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The exhaust extraction on the MOT bay at a town-centre Maltby garage wasn't pulling as it should, down to a partly blocked filter on the unit. I checked the static pressure, cleared the filter and re-tested each point against the benchmark. Capture returned to within the benchmark once that filter was sorted, and I wrote up a compliance report for the HSE file. The work went across two evenings after closing to keep disruption to a minimum.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Maltby 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 Aven Industrial 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 Maltby 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
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 Maltby sites - the Aven Industrial 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 Maltby 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 Maltby duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Denby Way 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.
precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Aven Industrial Park and Denby Way and across the wider South Yorkshire.
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 Maltby, but an Aven Industrial Park fabrication shop and a Muglet Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Maltby 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.
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 an Aven Industrial 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 Aven Industrial Park or a smaller Maltby workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 an Aven Industrial Park unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
The first shafts at Maltby Main Colliery were sunk on Tickhill Road in 1910, and by the mid-1930s the deep pit was hand-filling around a million tons of coal a year, remaining one of the last working mines in South Yorkshire until it finally closed in 2013. The engineering instinct that kept its winding gears, conveyors and workshop lathes turning still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units around Maltby today, 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. The pit is gone, but the precision trades it trained live on in the town's industrial units.
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