Selby · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Selby workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Selby
Selby is a market town of around 20,000 people on the River Ouse in North Yorkshire, grown up around the great Norman abbey that Benedict of Auxerre founded here by royal charter in 1069. Selby Abbey is one of the few complete medieval abbey churches left in England, and the town has long carried the tradition that Henry I, the only English-born son of William the Conqueror, was born in Selby.
Its working economy runs on engineering, food and animal-feed production and the fabrication and joinery trades, much of it grouped in the units at Selby Business Park, the A19 Business Park and the Vivars Industrial Centre off Canal Road.
Wherever a Selby 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 Selby Business Park units down to the smallest Selby 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 Selby and across North Yorkshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes, from the engineering shops that once served the Selby Coalfield to the fabrication and machine units at Selby Business Park and the A19 Business Park.
Grain-dust, oilseed and steam control in Selby's milling and food trade, heir to the Olympia Oil and Cake Mills that have processed oilseed and animal feed on the Barlby riverside since 1909.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Selby joinery and cabinet works, including the kitchen and joinery manufacturing at the Vivars Industrial Centre, 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 Vivars Industrial Centre and Selby Business Park units. Since the HSE 2019 reclassification, all welding fume, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Selby 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 Selby College and local laboratory and quality-control benches, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Selby
We are out under Selby's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the machine tool enclosures in a privately owned Selby machine shop had dropped since the last test, pointing to a filter well overdue for replacement. I checked the static pressure, made good the leaking connection and re-tested each point. Capture returned to within the benchmark once the worn impeller was dealt with, and I handed the report over on completion. The owner booked a regular quarterly visit on the spot.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Selby system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Selby 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 Selby 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
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.
On most Selby sites - the Selby Business Park units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Selby 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 Selby duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Vivars Industrial Centre 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 animal-feed 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 Selby Business Park units, term-time access at the Selby university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Selby 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 Selby Business Park 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 Selby Business Park or a smaller Selby 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 Selby, but a Selby Business Park fabrication shop and a Micklegate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and animal-feed production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Selby Business Park and Vivars Industrial Centre and across the wider North Yorkshire.
Local knowledge
The National Coal Board sank the Selby Coalfield through the 1970s, and from 1983 five satellite pits at Wistow, Stillingfleet, Riccall, North Selby and Whitemoor fed their coal by tunnel to the Gascoigne Wood drift, peaking in 1993 to 94 at twelve million tonnes a year, close to half of all Britain's deep-mined output, before the complex closed in 2004. That heavy-engineering instinct still runs through Selby's machine and fabrication shops, 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 so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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