Morpeth · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Morpeth workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Morpeth
Morpeth is the county town of Northumberland, a historic market town of around 14,400 people wrapped inside a loop of the River Wansbeck. Its Wednesday market, chartered around 1200, and its Grade I clock tower anchor a compact, working centre.
The town's trade sits east of the river on the Coopies Lane and Coopies Field estates - joinery shops, CNC engineers, motor factors and food wholesalers - where extraction is the line between a compliant workshop and a fined one.
Each of those Morpeth 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 Coopies Lane Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Morpeth workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Morpeth and across Northumberland it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Extraction on saws, sanders and CNC routers at Morpeth's furniture and kitchen firms. Hardwood dust is a Schedule 1 carcinogen under COSHH, so capture is tested right at the tool.
Oil-mist and coolant extraction over the machining lines on Coopies Lane. Metalworking-fluid mist is checked so operators stay clear of the aerosol drifting off the bed.
Tailpipe exhaust extraction at Morpeth garages, tyre bays and fast-fit centres, ducted away so diesel and petrol fumes never bank up across the workshop floor.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Coopies Lane and Coopies Field units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Morpeth 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 Northumberland College and the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital at Cramlington, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Morpeth
We are out under Morpeth's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A blacksmith's forge in Morpeth had the capture velocity at its bench hoods drop below benchmark, with a slipping fan drive belt. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the welding-bench extract arms and changed a tired filter before re-checking, and the LEV passed on re-test across the arms, with a full report for the COSHH file. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume as carcinogenic in 2019, on-torch capture was checked alongside the arms.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Morpeth 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 Coopies Lane 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 Morpeth line.
Where exposure is in question - a joinery and cabinet making 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.
On most Morpeth sites - the Coopies Lane Industrial Estate 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 Morpeth 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 Morpeth duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Coopies Field 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 joinery and cabinet making bay, an engineering and cnc machining bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
joinery and cabinet making, engineering and CNC machining, vehicle service and MOT bays, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Coopies Lane Industrial Estate and Coopies Field and across the wider Northumberland.
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 Morpeth, but a Coopies Lane Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Bridge Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Coopies Lane Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Coopies Lane Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Morpeth university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Coopies Lane 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Coopies Lane Industrial Estate and Coopies Field, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Northumberland.
Local knowledge
Morpeth's Clock Tower, a rare free-standing bell tower built in the early 17th century, still holds a Grade I listing over Oldgate and once rang the town curfew. It has watched local trades come and go for four hundred years. The modern equivalent of that upkeep is local exhaust ventilation: weld-fume arms, dust extraction and mist units on the Coopies Lane estate, thorough-examined and tested to COSHH regulation 9 so what leaves an operator's breathing zone is measured, not assumed.
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