Sherborne · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sherborne workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sherborne
Sherborne is a honey-coloured market town in north-west Dorset, home to about 10,400 people on the River Yeo at the edge of the Blackmore Vale. Its Ham-stone abbey and two castles pull the visitors, but the town runs day to day on light industry and independent trade.
Its working side sits on the Coldharbour Business Park and the Barton View Business Park - light-industrial estates carrying engineering firms, spring-makers, joinery shops and vehicle workshops, alongside the town's building-supply yards and garages.
Each of those Sherborne processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Coldharbour Business Park units to the one-bench Sherborne workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Sherborne and the wider Dorset it is your evidence under COSHH.
CNC mist and coolant extraction at the machine shops and spring-makers around Coldharbour and East Mill Lane, where Baumann UK forms industrial springs and wire. Oil-mist and metalworking-fluid mist are captured at source to keep breathing zones and floors clear.
Fine-dust and sander extraction for the cabinet-makers and joinery shops on the Sherborne estates. Wood dust is a listed carcinogen, so LEV at each machine holds airborne dust below the workplace exposure limit.
Tailpipe and brake-dust extraction at the garages and MOT bays serving the A30 and the town's traffic. Diesel engine exhaust is a recognised carcinogen, so fumes are ducted out at the bay rather than left to hang.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Coldharbour Business Park and Barton View Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Sherborne 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 Yeovil College and the Yeatman Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sherborne
We are out under Sherborne's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A school science lab in Sherborne had lost control at the prep-bench fume cupboard, with a slipping fan belt. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the fume cupboards, sorted the belt and cleared a blocked filter, then re-checked each point. All points passed on re-test once the blocked filter was cleared, and we handed over the readings and the LEV report.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Sherborne 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 Coldharbour 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 Sherborne line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and precision machining process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
On most Sherborne sites - the Coldharbour 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 Sherborne 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 Sherborne duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Barton View Business Park 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 engineering and precision machining bay, a joinery and woodworking bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Sherborne, but a Coldharbour Business Park fabrication shop and a Cheap Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Coldharbour Business Park and Barton View Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Dorset.
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 Coldharbour Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Coldharbour Business Park units, term-time access at the Sherborne university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Coldharbour Business Park or a smaller Sherborne workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Coldharbour 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.
Local knowledge
Sherborne Abbey carries the earliest great fan-vaulted nave in England, raised after a 1437 fire that started in a riot between townsfolk and monks. The vault was cut from local Ham stone, worked by hand and lung for generations. Today the town's stone, metal and timber trades cut with power tools, and the dust and fume that follows is held by local exhaust ventilation - captured at the tool, ducted out, and tested to the airflow the work demands.
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