Stanley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stanley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stanley
Stanley stands high on a County Durham hilltop between Chester-le-Street and Consett, a former coal-mining town whose name the wider world knows through Beamish, the Living Museum of the North that sits just outside it. It grew in the nineteenth century when the Joicey family sank pit after pit into the rich Durham coking coal beneath West Stanley, South Moor and Craghead, drawing scattered settlements together into one working town.
That industrial instinct survives in the light-industrial and engineering units grouped at the Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate and the Greencroft Industrial Estate at Annfield Plain, where manufacturing sits alongside retail and health as one of the town's largest employers.
Each of those Stanley processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Stanley workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Stanley and the rest of County Durham it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machines and lathes in the engineering units at Tanfield Lea and Greencroft, a trade that grew straight out of the pit-head and railway-workshop skills the coalfield left behind.
Steam canopies and flour-dust capture in the bakeries and food producers that supply the town's shops and caterers, where airborne flour is both a health hazard and an explosion risk.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Stanley cabinet shops and joinery works, catching hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Tanfield Lea and Greencroft units, fed by the town's long fabrication and railway-engineering heritage. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stanley bodyshops and repairers. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the college teaching labs and healthcare sites of the Derwentside area, checked to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stanley
We are out under Stanley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Control at the nail stations had fallen away in a refurbished Stanley nail bar, traced to a leaking flexible connection on the station extract nozzles. I checked the static pressure, dealt with the worn impeller and re-tested each point against the benchmark. One point failed initially on debris in the ducting and passed once that was cleared. I handed the report over on completion, having timed the job for the school holidays while the studio was quiet.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Stanley 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 Tanfield Lea 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 Stanley 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 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.
Across most Stanley sites - the Tanfield Lea 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 Stanley 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 Stanley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Greencroft 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 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.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Stanley 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 Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Stanley 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 Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate and Greencroft Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider County Durham.
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 Stanley, but a Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Clifford Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Tanfield Lea Industrial Estate and Greencroft Industrial Estate and across the wider County Durham.
Local knowledge
On the morning of 16 February 1909 an explosion of firedamp and coal dust tore through the West Stanley Colliery, the Burns Pit, killing 168 men and boys and marking the town forever. Few places understand better what unventilated, contaminated air can do underground or above it. That hard-won respect for what the air carries still runs through Stanley's engineering shops, where every one has 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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