Sittingbourne · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sittingbourne workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sittingbourne
Sittingbourne is a Kent town in the Swale borough, around 55,000, a historic paper-making and brick-making town on Milton Creek, home to one of the largest paper mills in Europe and to the Kent Science Park.
The signature trade is paper and science - the paper-making and packaging of the Kemsley mill, the pharmaceutical and life-science laboratories of the Kent Science Park, and the food and drink manufacturing - across the Castle Road and Kent Science Park estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Sittingbourne 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 Castle Road units down to the smallest Sittingbourne 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 Sittingbourne and across Kent it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Steam, dust and process-fume extraction across the paper-making and packaging lines of the recovered-fibre mill, the defining trade of the town, where paper dust and steam need capture at source.
Fume-cupboard and local-exhaust testing across the pharmaceutical, biopharma and research laboratories of the Kent Science Park, where containment is examined to its safe face velocity.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food and drink producers of the fruit county, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Castle Road and Kent Science 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 Sittingbourne 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 local college and Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sittingbourne
We are out under Sittingbourne's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A paper mill near Sittingbourne had a steam-and-dust extraction hood over a recovered-fibre line pulling weak because the ducting above it had partly collapsed under the load. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the structural failure. It failed on the collapsed duct and the dust breakthrough, and we specified the replacement run. The line ran hot and humid, so the test was fitted around a scheduled maintenance shift.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Sittingbourne system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Castle Road 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 Sittingbourne line.
Where exposure is in question - a paper-making and packaging 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 Sittingbourne sites - the Castle Road 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 Sittingbourne 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 Sittingbourne duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Kent Science 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. A paper-making and packaging bay, a pharmaceutical and life-science laboratories bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Castle Road unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Sittingbourne 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 Sittingbourne, but a Castle Road fabrication shop and a High 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 Castle Road or a smaller Sittingbourne workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Castle Road units, term-time access at the Sittingbourne university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Paper-making and packaging, pharmaceutical and life-science laboratories, food and drink manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the science park and hospital - the trades clustered around Castle Road and Kent Science Park and across the wider Kent.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.