Newton Abbot · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Newton Abbot workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Newton Abbot
Newton Abbot is a Devon market town of around 26,000 people at the head of the Teign estuary, and the railway made it - the South Devon Railway reached the town in 1846, and the locomotive works that followed grew into a plant employing over a thousand men. It sits at the edge of the ball-clay country, one of the largest livestock-market towns in the West Country.
Its working economy today runs on food processing, engineering and the construction-supply trades, much of it grouped in the units at Brunel Industrial Estate and the sprawling Heathfield Industrial Estate out towards Bovey Tracey.
Every one of those Newton Abbot 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 Brunel Industrial Estate units to the smaller Newton Abbot 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 Newton Abbot and the wider Devon it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes, in a town whose engineering trade grew out of the Great Western locomotive works and still runs through its machine shops at Brunel and Heathfield.
Steam canopies, flour-dust control and cold-store hygiene across the food-processing plants that anchor the Heathfield Industrial Estate, one of the largest employment sites in Teignbridge.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at local cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Brunel and Heathfield units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Newton Abbot 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 the town's laboratories, including the clay-industry and quality labs that serve the Bovey Basin extraction sites, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Newton Abbot
We are out under Newton Abbot's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Face velocity across the fume cupboards at a Newton Abbot school science lab was reading low, traced to a partly blocked filter. We checked static pressure, cleared the worn impeller and re-tested each point against benchmark. The system met control standards once the slipping belt was sorted, and we flagged the worn part to the lab manager for their maintenance records. The certificate and readings went over on completion.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Newton Abbot 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 Brunel 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 Newton Abbot 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.
For most Newton Abbot sites - from the Brunel 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 Newton Abbot 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 Newton Abbot duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Heathfield 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 Brunel Industrial Estate and Heathfield Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Devon.
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 Brunel 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 Newton Abbot, but a Brunel Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Wolborough Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Newton Abbot 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.
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 Brunel Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Brunel Industrial Estate or a smaller Newton Abbot workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
The South Devon Railway reached Newton Abbot in 1846, and within a year the company had opened locomotive works here that the Great Western Railway took over in 1876 and built into a plant employing over a thousand men by 1930. Its fitters, blacksmiths and boilermakers turned a market town into a bona fide railway town, and that engineering instinct still runs through the machine shops and manufacturers at Brunel and Heathfield. 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 the regulations set, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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