Southport · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Southport workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Southport
Southport is a Victorian seaside resort in Sefton on the Merseyside coast, a town of around 94,000, famous for the tree-lined boulevard of Lord Street and Royal Birkdale golf.
The work is light industry and food - the engineering and light manufacturing, the food and drink manufacturing, and the print and hospitality plant - across the Crowland Street and Gravel Lane estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Southport process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Crowland Street plant to the single-bench Southport units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Southport and the rest of Merseyside it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the engineering and light-manufacturing units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food and drink producers and bakeries, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Solvent and ink-mist extraction across the print and finishing lines, where VOC vapour needs capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Crowland Street and Gravel Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Southport 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 Southport College and Southport and Formby District General Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Southport
We are out under Southport's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A printing and lamination shop in Southport had the dilution-ventilation exhaust fan on a wide-format UV printer wired backwards after a recent electrical refit, so it was running in reverse. We corrected the phase wiring at the main isolator and verified the negative-pressure containment with smoke sticks. It passed once rewired, with the exhaust flowing the right way and the solvent odour clearing immediately. Being right on the coastal front, we also checked for early galvanic corrosion on the external exhaust louvres.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Southport 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 Crowland Street 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 Southport line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and light 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.
For most Southport sites - from the Crowland Street 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 Southport 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 Southport duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Gravel Lane 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 light manufacturing bay, a food and drink manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Engineering and light manufacturing, food and drink manufacturing, print and finishing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Crowland Street and Gravel Lane and across the wider Merseyside.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Southport 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Crowland Street units, term-time access at the Southport university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Southport, but a Crowland Street fabrication shop and a Lord Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Crowland Street production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Crowland Street and Gravel Lane, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Merseyside.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.