Mirfield · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Mirfield workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Mirfield
Mirfield is a West Yorkshire town of around 20,000 people on the River Calder, set between Dewsbury and Huddersfield in the Kirklees district. It is best known for the Community of the Resurrection, the Anglican monastery on the hill above the town, and for Roe Head School, where Charlotte Bronte was a pupil and later taught while her sisters Emily and Anne boarded there.
Its working economy runs on manufacturing, distribution and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Bankfield Business Park on Huddersfield Road and the newer Moor Park 25 hub close to junction 25 of the M62.
Every Mirfield 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 Bankfield Business Park plant to the single-bench Mirfield units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Mirfield employers and others across West Yorkshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on machining and metalworking, from the manufacturing units at Bankfield Business Park to the engineering and bed-making trades that grew out of the town's textile and machinery heritage.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and food units around Mirfield, where airborne flour is an explosion risk as well as a health one.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet and furniture makers around town - a trade with deep local roots, from Bickers Joiners and Cabinet Makers founded at the top of Newgate to the furniture firms at Bankfield today.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the steel fabricators and engineering units at Moor Park 25 and Bankfield Business Park. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Mirfield 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 rooms of Mirfield Free Grammar, Castle Hall Academy and the town's other teaching labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Mirfield
We are out under Mirfield's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An independent Mirfield bakery had flour-dust extraction on the mixer that wasn't pulling as it should, down to a leaking flexible connection. We carried out a full thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, running smoke visualisation and checking the filter. One point failed at first on a worn impeller and passed once we put it right, with the report handed over on completion. We timed the job for half-term while the shop was quiet.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Mirfield 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 Bankfield 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 Mirfield 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 Mirfield sites - the Bankfield 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 Mirfield 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 Mirfield duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Moor Park 25 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.
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 Bankfield 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bankfield Business Park units, term-time access at the Mirfield 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 Bankfield Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Mirfield 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.
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 Mirfield, but a Bankfield Business Park fabrication shop and a Newgate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Bankfield Business Park and Moor Park 25 and across the wider West Yorkshire.
Local knowledge
The oldest of Mirfield's mills, Hopton Mills, was founded by Henry Wheatley on the River Calder in 1790, and by the mid-eighteenth century the Reverend Ismay counted some 600 townsfolk at work in the woollen trade, carding, spinning and weaving. That making instinct still runs through the engineering and manufacturing units at Bankfield Business Park and Moor Park 25, where machine tools, textile plant and metalwork throw off mist, dust and fume. Every one of those shops carries a duty to control what its work puts into the air. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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