Preston · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Preston workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Preston
Preston is the county town of Lancashire, a city of around 148,000 anchored to one of the UK's biggest aerospace clusters at BAE Systems Warton and Samlesbury.
The work is aerospace and precision engineering - the machining, surface treatment and composites of the BAE supply chain, the CNC and fabrication shops, and the food and plastics producers - across the Red Scar and Walton Summit estates, with the bodyshops and labs between them.
Wherever a Preston process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Red Scar units down to the smallest Preston workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Preston employers and others across Lancashire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Machining, grinding and surface-treatment extraction on the aerospace supply-chain lines, where fine metal dust, mist and process fume need capture at source.
Oil-mist and weld-fume extraction on the CNC and fabrication shops. Mist collectors clog quietly; a measured face velocity is the only proof they still capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Preston bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Dust, steam and mist extraction across the food and plastics producers, where organic and process dust needs capture proven.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the University of Central Lancashire and the Royal Preston Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Preston
We are out under Preston's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A precision-engineering CNC shop in Preston had a coolant-mist collector vibrating hard on its brackets - the fan impeller had gone badly out of balance. We isolated the unit, cleaned the heavy grease off the fan blades and checked the vibration alongside the air-volume flow. It passed conditionally on the extraction, but we issued a mechanical warning on the mounting stability. It was a busy shop floor with automated guided vehicles moving through the gangways, so we kept clear of them as we worked.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Preston 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 Red Scar 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 Preston 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
Across most Preston sites - the Red Scar 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 Preston 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 Preston duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Walton Summit 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 cnc machining and fabrication bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Red Scar or a smaller Preston workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Preston, but a Red Scar fabrication shop and a Friargate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Red Scar and Walton Summit, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lancashire.
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 Red Scar 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, CNC machining and fabrication, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, food and plastics manufacturing, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Red Scar and Walton Summit and across the wider Lancashire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Red Scar units, term-time access at the Preston university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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