New Milton · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for New Milton workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
New Milton
New Milton is a New Forest town of around 28,000 people on the Hampshire coast, a place that barely existed until the London and South Western Railway pushed its direct line to Bournemouth through the heath and opened a station here in 1888, giving the settlement both its name and its shape. Its most famous landmark is the castellated red-brick water tower of 1900, an eighty-foot mock-Tudor tower that once held two hundred thousand gallons and still stands over the town centre.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, the food trades and the fabrication and vehicle workshops grouped in the units at Gore Road Industrial Estate and Nova Business Park on the edge of the town.
Every one of those New Milton processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Gore Road Industrial Estate units to the smaller New Milton workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across New Milton and the wider Hampshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and the gauge and tooling shops on Gore Road Industrial Estate, where fine metalworking-fluid mist is captured at the machine before it reaches the lungs.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in New Milton's bakeries and food producers, from ovens and proving rooms to the packing lines that supply the town and the wider New Forest edge.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the town cabinet and joinery shops, where hardwood and MDF dust is drawn off at the tool before it can hang in the air.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Gore Road and Nova Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at New Milton bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the science labs at Arnewood School and other local teaching and testing rooms, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in New Milton
We are out under New Milton's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A family-run monumental mason's in New Milton had extraction on the grinding station that wasn't pulling as it should, down to a leaking flexible connection. We checked the static pressure, cleared the debris in the ducting and re-tested each point against benchmark. One point failed initially on an unsealed joint but passed after the remedial work, with a signed HSG258 report to finish. The yard's office cat kept a close eye on us from a sunny windowsill.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a New Milton 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 Gore 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 New Milton 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
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 New Milton sites - the Gore Road 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 New Milton 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 New Milton duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Nova 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.
precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Gore Road Industrial Estate and Nova Business Park and across the wider Hampshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Gore Road Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the New Milton 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 Gore 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.
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 New Milton, but a Gore Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an Old Milton Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Gore Road Industrial Estate and Nova Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hampshire.
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 Gore Road Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
New Milton owes its very existence to the railway: engineers pushed the direct line to Bournemouth through the heath in the 1880s, fighting unstable, waterlogged ground around Sway before the station finally opened in 1888. A scatter of farms grew into a working town around the tracks, and its trade estates now carry the engineering, joinery and vehicle shops that keep the New Forest edge supplied. Every one of those workshops has a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its machines throw 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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