Newquay · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Newquay workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Newquay
Newquay is Cornwall's premier surfing resort, a north-coast town of around twenty-four thousand people whose Atlantic rollers at Fistral Beach made it the surf capital of Britain. It grew from the Cornish fishing settlement of Towan Blystra, renamed after the new quay a Bishop of Exeter funded in the mid fifteenth century, and its whitewashed Huer's Hut still watches the sea where lookouts once called the pilchard shoals ashore.
Beyond the beaches its working economy runs on aerospace, precision engineering and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Treloggan Industrial Estate and the Aerohub Business Park beside Cornwall Airport Newquay.
Every Newquay 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 Treloggan Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Newquay units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Newquay and the rest of Cornwall it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres at the aerospace suppliers and advanced-manufacturing firms drawn to the Aerohub Business Park and the Space Systems Operations Facility at Cornwall Airport Newquay, the former RAF St Mawgan base that now hosts Spaceport Cornwall.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, pasty makers and seafood kitchens that supply Newquay's hotels and holiday trade, where extraction has to hold through a summer of long shifts.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet shops and joinery works around Treloggan Industrial Estate and Prow Park, 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 Treloggan units, including established fabricators such as Mid Cornwall Metal Fabrications. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Newquay bodyshops and windscreen and repair units. 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 space, satellite and materials research firms clustered at Aerohub, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Newquay
We are out under Newquay's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the dough mixer hoods of a bakery in Newquay had dropped since the previous test, pointing us to a slipping fan drive belt. We carried out the full examination and test with velocity readings, smoke visualisation and a filter check. Clearing the leaking connection brought the system back within control standards, and the readings and report went into their file. Parking was tight on the high street, so we ran our hoses in from the rear yard instead.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Newquay 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 Treloggan 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 Newquay line.
Where exposure is in question - an aerospace and precision engineering 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.
Across most Newquay sites - the Treloggan Industrial Estate plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Newquay 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 Newquay duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Aerohub 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. An aerospace and precision engineering 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. 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 Treloggan Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Newquay 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.
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 Treloggan 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.
aerospace and precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Treloggan Industrial Estate and Aerohub Business Park and across the wider Cornwall.
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 Newquay, but a Treloggan Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Gover Lane canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
A dated report to the HSG258 method, the readings taken, a pass or remedial outcome for each hood, and system labelling - the evidence a duty-holder at Treloggan Industrial Estate or a smaller Newquay workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
The airfield northeast of the town began life as RAF St Mawgan, a Coastal Command station whose long runway was built to take the largest maritime aircraft, and it flies today as Cornwall Airport Newquay. Around it the Aerohub enterprise zone and business park have drawn aerospace, advanced-manufacturing and space firms, and in 2023 the site launched Britain's first orbital attempt from Spaceport Cornwall. That precision-engineering instinct runs through the town's machine shops and suppliers, and every one 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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