Spalding · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Spalding workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Spalding
Spalding, in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire and home to around 30,500, sits at the heart of Britain's flower-growing country beside the River Welland, its historic Flower Parade and Springfields outlet anchoring a huge food-processing economy.
The signature trade is food and flowers - the chilled ready-meal and prepared-food manufacturing, the vegetable and produce processing, and the cold-store logistics and horticultural engineering - across the West Marsh Road Industrial Estate and Wardentree Lane estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Spalding 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 West Marsh Road Industrial Estate units to the smaller Spalding workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Spalding and the rest of Lincolnshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Steam, oven-fume and fryer-fume extraction across the cook-and-fill lines of the chilled ready-meal and prepared-food plants, a defining trade of the town, where the ovens, fryers and steam kettles need capture at source.
Wash-down mist, blanching-steam and cleaning-vapour extraction across the vegetable-prep and packing halls of the produce cluster, where the process moisture needs capture proven.
Refrigeration-plant, forklift-exhaust and weld-fume extraction across the chilled-distribution and agri-machinery units, where the charging bays and workshops each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the West Marsh Road Industrial Estate and Wardentree 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 Spalding 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 Boston College and the Johnson Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Spalding
We are out under Spalding's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A chilled ready-meal plant in Spalding had a steam-and-oven extraction over a cook-and-fill line pulling weak because the ducting above it had loaded with cooked-on residue. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the fouling. It failed on the restricted duct and the steam breakthrough, and we specified the clean and remedial run. The line ran hot cook-chill, so the test was fitted around a wash-down shift.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Spalding 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 West Marsh Road Industrial Estate 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 Spalding line.
Where exposure is in question - a chilled ready-meal and prepared-food 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.
For the great majority of Spalding sites, from the West Marsh Road Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Spalding 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 Spalding duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Wardentree Lane Industrial Estate 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 chilled ready-meal and prepared-food manufacturing bay, a vegetable and produce processing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Chilled ready-meal and prepared-food manufacturing, vegetable and produce processing, cold-store logistics and horticultural engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around West Marsh Road Industrial Estate and Wardentree Lane Industrial Estate and across the wider Lincolnshire.
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 West Marsh Road Industrial Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the West Marsh Road Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Spalding university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 West Marsh Road Industrial Estate 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 West Marsh Road Industrial Estate or a smaller Spalding workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Spalding 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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