Stamford · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stamford workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stamford
Stamford is a honey-coloured limestone town on the River Welland in south Lincolnshire, so complete in its Georgian and medieval streets that in 1967 it became the first conservation area designated in England. Its skyline of five medieval church spires and the great Elizabethan pile of Burghley House on its edge have made it a favourite film set, standing in for the England of Middlemarch and Pride and Prejudice.
Behind the stone frontages the town has a real working economy in engineering, food and the fabrication trades, much of it in the units off Ryhall Road and on Newstead Road, with the Barnack Road generator works still carrying the name Stamford around the world.
Every one of those Stamford 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 Ryhall Road Industrial Estate units to the smaller Stamford workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Stamford and the wider Lincolnshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes, from the Barnack Road works where the STAMFORD alternator brand and its Newage generator heritage still runs, to the precision shops that grew out of Blackstone's diesel-engine trade.
Steam canopies, oven extraction and flour-dust control in the town's bakeries, kitchens and small food producers, where airborne flour is treated as the respiratory hazard it is.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet shops and joinery works on the Ryhall Road estate, 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 Ryhall Road and Newstead Road units. Since the HSE reclassification in 2019, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stamford 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 science labs at New College Stamford and the Stamford Endowed Schools, and for the Stamford and Rutland Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stamford
We are out under Stamford's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The welding-bay extraction at a traditional fabrication shop in Stamford had lost its pull, with debris built up in the ducting behind it. We ran the full examination and test, taking velocity readings, using smoke and checking the filter. The LEV passed on re-test across the welding bench extract arms, and a compliance report went to their HSE file. We handed the workshop manager a short set of photos for the audit trail.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Stamford 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 Ryhall 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 Stamford line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing 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.
Across most Stamford sites - the Ryhall Road Industrial Estate 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 Stamford 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 Stamford duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Newstead 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 manufacturing 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.
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 Stamford, but a Ryhall Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Broad 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 Ryhall Road Industrial Estate or a smaller Stamford workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Ryhall Road Industrial Estate and Newstead Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lincolnshire.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Ryhall Road Industrial Estate and Newstead Road and across the wider Lincolnshire.
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 Ryhall Road Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Ryhall 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.
Local knowledge
In 1837 a Kettering millwright set up a workshop in Stamford that grew into Blackstone and Co, and from 1896 the firm's oil and diesel engines were shipped by the hundred thousand across the world, employing well over a thousand local people at its Ryhall Road works. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and the Barnack Road generator works, 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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