Newcastle-under-Lyme · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Newcastle-under-Lyme workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme is an ancient Staffordshire market town of around 75,000 beside the Potteries, home to Keele University, one of the UK's largest campuses.
The work is ceramics and engineering - the ceramics and pottery trades of the neighbouring Potteries, the engineering and advanced manufacturing, and the food manufacturing - across the Holditch Industrial Estate and Parkhouse estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Newcastle-under-Lyme 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 Holditch Industrial Estate units to the smaller Newcastle-under-Lyme workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Newcastle-under-Lyme and the rest of Staffordshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Glaze, dust and kiln-fume extraction across the ceramics and pottery lines of the neighbouring Potteries, where mineral dust and fume need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the engineering and advanced-manufacturing units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Holditch Industrial Estate and Parkhouse units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Newcastle-under-Lyme 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 Keele University and the Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Newcastle-under-Lyme
We are out under Newcastle-under-Lyme's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A brick and industrial-ceramics factory in Newcastle-under-Lyme had a materials-handling conveyor drop-point LEV with a completely blinded secondary HEPA filter block. We measured the filter differential pressure with a digital manometer and checked for bypass with a particle counter. It failed on the severe filter blinding and high pressure drop, which was letting fine silica dust escape the enclosure. Crystalline-silica dust is tightly regulated, so we flagged the filter elements for immediate replacement.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Newcastle-under-Lyme system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Holditch 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 Newcastle-under-Lyme line.
Where exposure is in question - a ceramics and pottery 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 Newcastle-under-Lyme sites - from the Holditch 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 Newcastle-under-Lyme 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 Newcastle-under-Lyme duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Parkhouse 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 ceramics and pottery bay, an engineering and advanced manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Holditch Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Newcastle-under-Lyme university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Newcastle-under-Lyme, but a Holditch Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an Ironmarket canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Holditch Industrial Estate and Parkhouse, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Staffordshire.
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 Holditch Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Ceramics and pottery, engineering and advanced manufacturing, food manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and college - the trades clustered around Holditch Industrial Estate and Parkhouse and across the wider Staffordshire.
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 Holditch 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.