Radcliffe · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Radcliffe workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Radcliffe
Radcliffe is a market town of around 30,000 people in the Irwell Valley, three miles southwest of Bury, whose name comes from the Old English for the red cliff or bank above the river. It appears in the Domesday Book as Radeclive, and its oldest survivor is Radcliffe Tower, the ruined stone hall of a medieval manor that still stands as a scheduled monument beside the Grade I church of St Mary.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Bealey Industrial Estate on Dumers Lane and the Bradley Fold Trading Estate on the edge of town.
Wherever a Radcliffe 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 Bealey Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Radcliffe workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Radcliffe and across Greater Manchester it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes, in a town whose engineering instinct runs back to the textile-machinery builders Dobson and Barlow at Bradley Fold and lives on in the machine shops around Bealey Industrial Estate.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food units on the Radcliffe estates, where extraction keeps airborne dust and vapour off the production floor.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Radcliffe 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 Bealey Industrial Estate and Bradley Fold units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Radcliffe bodyshops and commercial-vehicle workshops. 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 school and college science labs and the technical workrooms across the town, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Radcliffe
We are out under Radcliffe's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An electronics workshop in Radcliffe had capture velocity dropping below benchmark at several of its solder-fume tip nozzles, with a worn fan impeller behind it. We carried out a full thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, running smoke visualisation and checking the filter. Once the slipping belt was cleared the system met control standards, and we left the readings and a report for the file. The foreman booked a regular three-monthly visit on the spot.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Radcliffe 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 Bealey 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 Radcliffe 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
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 Radcliffe sites - the Bealey 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 Radcliffe 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 Radcliffe duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Bradley Fold Trading 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bealey Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Radcliffe university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Radcliffe 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.
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 Radcliffe, but a Bealey Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Blackburn Street 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 Bealey Industrial Estate or a smaller Radcliffe workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bealey Industrial Estate and Bradley Fold Trading Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Bealey 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.
Local knowledge
The machine-tool builders Dobson and Barlow ran foundries and workshops at Bradley Fold, part of a valley that turned metal as readily as it spun cotton. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through Radcliffe's machine shops and fabricators around Bealey Industrial Estate, and 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 COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.