Musselburgh · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Musselburgh workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Musselburgh
Musselburgh is the Honest Toun, a burgh of around 22,000 people at the mouth of the River Esk where it meets the Firth of Forth, just east of Edinburgh. It carries its motto Honestas from 1332, when the townsfolk nursed the dying Regent Randolph, Earl of Moray, and asked no reward. It is also home to Musselburgh Links, the oldest continuously played golf course in the world, and to Musselburgh Racecourse, the oldest in Scotland.
Its working economy runs on engineering, food production and the fabrication and net trades that grew up around Fisherrow harbour, much of it now grouped in the light-industrial units at Fisherrow Industrial Estate and Inveresk Industrial Estate off Newhailes Road.
Each of those Musselburgh 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 Fisherrow Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Musselburgh workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Musselburgh and the wider East Lothian it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on machining and metalwork, a trade rooted in Bruntons Wire Works, which once employed more than 2,500 people in Musselburgh and drew wire and rope for the world before the original firm closed in 1997.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control across the bakeries, seafood processors and food units on Newhailes Road, where the town's mussel and white-fish heritage still shapes what is handled and packed.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Musselburgh cabinet shops and joinery works on the Fisherrow and Inveresk estates, 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 Fisherrow Industrial Estate and Inveresk Industrial Estate units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Musselburgh bodyshops and garages. 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 departments at Loretto School and the town health and dental practices, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Musselburgh
We are out under Musselburgh's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a well-known monumental mason's in Musselburgh, the dust capture hoods were pulling weaker than at their last check, and a filter long past its change date turned out to be the culprit. We logged fresh benchmark readings, visualised the capture at each hood and swapped out the choked filter, then traced the remaining shortfall to a worn impeller and put that right too. With the fan restored, the readings settled comfortably back inside benchmark. The maintenance log picked up a compliance report for the HSE file along with images taken before and after the work.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Musselburgh system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Fisherrow 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 Musselburgh 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 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For most Musselburgh sites - from the Fisherrow Industrial Estate units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Musselburgh 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 Musselburgh duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Inveresk 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 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Fisherrow Industrial Estate and Inveresk Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Lothian.
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 Fisherrow Industrial Estate and Inveresk Industrial Estate and across the wider East Lothian.
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 Fisherrow Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Musselburgh 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 Musselburgh, but a Fisherrow Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Newbigging canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Fisherrow Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Musselburgh university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Bruntons Wire Works stood on the banks of the Esk for well over a century, drawing wire and rope on a scale that made it the town's largest employer with more than 2,500 workers, its shop air heavy with metal dust and cutting mist before the original firm closed in 1997. That engineering instinct still runs through Musselburgh's machine shops and fabricators on the Fisherrow and Inveresk estates, 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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