Market Harborough · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Market Harborough workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Market Harborough
Market Harborough is a Leicestershire market town of around 24,000 people, laid out around The Square where the Old Grammar School of 1614 still stands on its carved wooden pillars with the market running beneath it. It is a town that has always made things, from the Symington corset works that clothed Victorian Britain to the precision metal shops on its modern estates.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food and drink and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Airfield Business Park on the northern edge of town and at Eckland Lodge Business Park off the A508.
Each of those Market Harborough 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 Airfield Business Park units to the one-bench Market Harborough workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Market Harborough and the rest of Leicestershire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from the precision metal-component shops such as Sinotech that feed the automotive market to the powder and solids-handling process plant built by firms like Aptech on the town business parks.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Harborough's bakeries, kitchens and the chilled-food and logistics operations that Culina and the wider distribution trade run on the edge of town.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Market Harborough 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 Airfield Business Park and Eckland Lodge units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Harborough 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 labs at the Robert Smyth Academy and for the quality-control benches in the town manufacturing plants, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Market Harborough
We are out under Market Harborough's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a family-owned MOT garage in Market Harborough the weld-fume arms were struggling to reach benchmark and the filter was long past its change date. We logged fresh benchmark figures, used smoke to see how each hood was capturing and tightened up the loose joint we found. Once the worn impeller was swapped out every point cleared on re-test, and the garage went into their HSE file with a full compliance report. We wrapped the whole thing up in a single day so the ramps kept turning and the team hardly knew we were there.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Market Harborough 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 Airfield 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 Market Harborough 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
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.
Across most Market Harborough sites - the Airfield Business Park plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Market Harborough 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 Market Harborough duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Eckland Lodge Business Park 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.
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 Airfield Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Airfield Business 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 Airfield Business Park or a smaller Market Harborough workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Airfield Business Park units, term-time access at the Market Harborough university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Market Harborough, but an Airfield Business Park fabrication shop and an Adam and Eve Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Market Harborough 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.
Local knowledge
Market Harborough has made things for centuries, from the R and W H Symington works that used American Singer sewing machines to mass-produce corsets and Liberty bodices to the precision metal shops that supply the automotive market from its business parks today. That engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and process-plant builders, 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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