Shipley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Shipley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Shipley
Shipley is a market town on the River Aire just north of Bradford, and on its northern edge stands Saltaire - the UNESCO World Heritage model village that Sir Titus Salt built from 1851 around Salts Mill, once the largest industrial building in the world and now home to the David Hockney gallery. Hockney was himself a Bradford man, and the mill that made alpaca and worsted cloth now draws visitors to the same floors that once ran thick with wool dust.
Its working economy today runs on precision electronics, engineering and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Airedale Park, where Filtronic and Teledyne Defence and Space build RF and microwave hardware, and along the older industrial strip at Dockfield Road beside the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
Every one of those Shipley processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Airedale Park units to the smaller Shipley workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Shipley employers and others across West Yorkshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and solder-fume capture in the electronics shops at Airedale Park, where Filtronic, Teledyne Defence and Space and the microwave firms that grew from them carry on a machine-tool heritage that once ran through Lee and Crabtree and J. Parkinson and Sons.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Shipley's bakeries and food units, from the sausages that Binns of Saltaire makes its name on to the caterers and producers packed around the town and the canal-side estates.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Shipley 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 Airedale Park and Dockfield Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Shipley 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 the electronics and defence laboratories at Airedale Park and the college and clinical labs around the district, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Shipley
We are out under Shipley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A much-loved agricultural engineering workshop in Shipley had the extraction on its welding bays failing to pull as it should, traced to a poorly sealed duct joint. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. The LEV passed on re-test across the fume extraction arms, backed by full test documentation. The foreman kept us going with cups of tea through the morning.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Shipley 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 Airedale 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 Shipley line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and electronics 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.
For most Shipley sites - from the Airedale Park units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Shipley 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 Shipley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Dockfield Road 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 electronics 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.
precision engineering and electronics, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Airedale Park and Dockfield Road and across the wider West Yorkshire.
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 an Airedale Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Shipley, but an Airedale Park fabrication shop and a Market Square 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 Airedale Park or a smaller Shipley workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Airedale Park units, term-time access at the Shipley 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 Shipley 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.
Local knowledge
Shipley grew rich on the machinery of the wool trade, home to loom makers Lee and Crabtree, the galvanised container works of W. P. Butterfield and the machine-tool makers J. Parkinson and Sons who fed the mills of the Aire valley. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through the town, from the RF and microwave hardware Filtronic and Teledyne build at Airedale Park to the machine shops around Dockfield Road, 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.
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