Melton Mowbray · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Melton Mowbray workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray is a market town of around 27,500 in north-east Leicestershire, billed as the Rural Capital of Food, home of the protected Melton Mowbray pork pie, Stilton cheese, and a historic livestock market.
The signature trade is food - the pork-pie and cheese baking, the pet-food manufacturing, and the food processing and agricultural engineering - across the Leicester Road Industrial Estate and Saxby Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Melton Mowbray 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 Leicester Road Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Melton Mowbray 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 Melton Mowbray and across Leicestershire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Grease-laden oven fume, steam and flour-dust extraction across the hand-raised pork-pie bakeries and Stilton dairies, the defining trade of the food capital, where the ovens and dairies need capture at source.
Steam, odour and process-dust extraction across the extrusion, retorting and drying lines of the pet-food plant, the town's biggest industrial employer, where the heavy process heat and odour load the ductwork and need capture proven.
Wash-down mist, refrigeration condensate and weld-fume extraction across the chilled-food packing and agri-machinery units tied to the livestock market, where the process areas and workshops each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Leicester Road Industrial Estate and Saxby 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 Melton Mowbray 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 Brooksby Melton College and Melton Mowbray Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Melton Mowbray
We are out under Melton Mowbray's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A pet-food manufacturing plant in Melton Mowbray had a steam-and-odour extraction over an extrusion-and-drying line pulling weak because the ducting above it had loaded with organic residue. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the fouling. It failed on the restricted duct and the odour breakthrough, and we specified the clean and remedial run. The line ran hot with heavy odour, so the test was fitted around a wash-down shift.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Melton Mowbray 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 Leicester Road 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 Melton Mowbray line.
Where exposure is in question - a pork-pie and cheese baking 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.
Across most Melton Mowbray sites - the Leicester Road Industrial Estate 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 Melton Mowbray 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 Melton Mowbray duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Saxby Road 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 pork-pie and cheese baking bay, a pet-food manufacturing 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 Leicester Road 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.
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 Leicester Road Industrial Estate or a smaller Melton Mowbray 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 a Leicester Road Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Leicester Road Industrial Estate and Saxby Road Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Leicestershire.
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 Melton Mowbray, but a Leicester Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Nottingham Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Melton Mowbray 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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