Stratford-upon-Avon · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stratford-upon-Avon workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is the Warwickshire market town on the River Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564, and the millions of visitors who walk Henley Street to his birthplace each year make it one of the most famous small towns on earth. Behind the timber-framed frontages and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the Waterside sits a working town that still makes, mends and manufactures.
Its everyday economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication and finishing trades, much of it grouped in the units off Timothy's Bridge Road at Stratford Enterprise Park and the workshops around Masons Road and Western Road.
Every Stratford-upon-Avon 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 Stratford Enterprise Park plant to the single-bench Stratford-upon-Avon units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Stratford-upon-Avon employers and others across Warwickshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist, coolant-mist and grinding-dust extraction on the lathes and machining centres of the Stratford Enterprise Park shops, and at Pashley Cycles, the longest-established British bicycle maker, hand-brazing steel frames in the town since 1926.
Steam canopies, flour-dust control and cold-store extraction in the bakeries, kitchens and food producers that supply the town's hotels, restaurants and the hospitality trade that Shakespeare tourism sustains.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Stratford cabinet shops, furniture makers and joinery works, 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 Enterprise Park and Masons Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at the bodyshops serving the town's large motor-sales and dealership sector. 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 rooms at Stratford-upon-Avon College and the clinical areas at Stratford Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stratford-upon-Avon
We are out under Stratford-upon-Avon's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A town-centre print shop in Stratford-upon-Avon had lost control at the press, the press-side extraction hampered by a build-up of debris in the ducting. We checked static pressure, cleared the ducting out and re-tested each point against benchmark. With a slipping belt sorted too, the system met control standards, and we issued a signed HSG258 report. The workshop manager booked a regular three-monthly visit on the spot.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Stratford-upon-Avon system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Stratford Enterprise Park 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 Stratford-upon-Avon 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
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 Stratford-upon-Avon sites - the Stratford Enterprise Park 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 Stratford-upon-Avon 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 Stratford-upon-Avon duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Masons Road 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.
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 Stratford Enterprise Park and Masons Road Industrial Estate and across the wider Warwickshire.
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 Stratford-upon-Avon, but a Stratford Enterprise Park fabrication shop and a Bridge Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Stratford Enterprise Park units, term-time access at the Stratford-upon-Avon university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Stratford Enterprise Park 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 Stratford Enterprise Park and Masons Road Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Warwickshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Stratford-upon-Avon 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.
Local knowledge
William 'Rath' Pashley set up his bicycle works in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1926, and the firm still hand-builds steel-framed bikes and tricycles here, the last of only a handful of volume cycle makers left in Britain. That making instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and fabricators, 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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