Rawtenstall · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Rawtenstall workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Rawtenstall
Rawtenstall is the main town of the Rossendale Valley, set where the moorland cloughs of east Lancashire fold down towards the River Irwell. It is home to Mr Fitzpatrick's on Bank Street, the last original temperance bar in Britain, still pouring the sarsaparilla and dandelion and burdock cordials the town has bottled since 1890, and it sits at the heart of a valley that was once the slipper-making capital of the world.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units along New Hall Hey Road and in the converted mills off the valley floor at Hardmans Mill and Ilex Mill.
Wherever a Rawtenstall 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 New Hall Hey Business Park units down to the smallest Rawtenstall workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Rawtenstall and the wider Lancashire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC turning and machining centres, from metal-machining firms like Evenbridge on New Hall Hey Road to the light-manufacturing units that carry on Rossendale's making trades.
Steam canopies, flour-dust control and bottling-hall extraction in the valley's bakeries and the cordial works at Waterfoot, where Fitzpatrick's sarsaparilla and herbal syrups are still brewed to the family's original recipes.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Rawtenstall cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs, just as the old felt and slipper works once fought the fibre in the air.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the New Hall Hey and Hardmans Mill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Rossendale bodyshops along the Bacup Road corridor. 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 valley's schools, colleges and technical workshops, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Rawtenstall
We are out under Rawtenstall's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Face velocity across the bench capture hoods at an established fabrication shop in Rawtenstall was reading low, traced back to a poorly sealed duct joint. We checked static pressure, cleared the worn impeller and re-tested each point against benchmark. Sorting the loose joint brought the capture back within benchmark, and a compliance report went to their HSE file. Early morning starts before the shopfloor filled up kept the work flowing.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Rawtenstall 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 New Hall Hey Business Park 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 Rawtenstall 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.
Across most Rawtenstall sites - the New Hall Hey Business Park 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 Rawtenstall 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 Rawtenstall duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Hardmans Mill 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Rawtenstall 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.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around New Hall Hey Business Park and Hardmans Mill and across 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 New Hall Hey Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 New Hall Hey Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the New Hall Hey Business Park units, term-time access at the Rawtenstall university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around New Hall Hey Business Park and Hardmans Mill, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lancashire.
Local knowledge
Rossendale was once the slipper-making capital of the world, a trade founded in Waterfoot in 1874 and driven on by Rawtenstall's own Henry Whittaker Trickett, the Slipper King whose works employed thousands across the valley. That instinct for making things still runs through the town's machine shops and light-manufacturing units, 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 the regulations set, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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