Stretford · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stretford workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stretford
Stretford sits on the southwestern edge of Manchester in the borough of Trafford, a town of around 47,000 people whose Old Trafford district gives its name to two of the most famous grounds in world sport - Manchester United's stadium, home to the club since 1910, and Lancashire County Cricket Club, playing at Old Trafford since 1864.
Its working economy is dominated by Trafford Park, opened in 1896 as the world's first planned industrial estate and still one of the largest in Europe, where food manufacturing, engineering and logistics sit side by side across estates like Broadoak Business Park and the Mosley Road units.
Every Stretford 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 Trafford Park plant to the single-bench Stretford 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 Stretford and the rest of Greater Manchester it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, in the tradition of British Westinghouse and Metropolitan-Vickers, whose electrical works made Trafford Park a centre of heavy engineering.
Steam canopies and flour and grain-dust control in the food plants that made Trafford Park's name, from the Kellogg's cereal works to the Procter and Gamble and Unilever sites nearby.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the joinery and cabinet shops in the Trafford Park units, 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 Mosley Road and Broadoak fabrication 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 along Chester Road and around Trafford Park. 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 Trafford College and the laboratories serving Trafford Park manufacturers, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stretford
We are out under Stretford's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A welding bay in Stretford had face velocity across its bench extract arms reading low, traced to a slipping fan drive belt. We checked static pressure, cleared a loose joint and re-tested each point against benchmark. The system met control standards once the leaking connection was dealt with, and we handed the report over on completion. The workshop manager kept us going with fresh coffee through the morning.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Stretford 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 Trafford 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 Stretford 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.
On most Stretford sites - the Trafford Park units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Stretford 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 Stretford duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Broadoak Business Park 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Trafford Park and Broadoak Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Trafford 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Stretford 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.
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 Trafford Park and Broadoak Business Park and across the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Trafford Park 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 Trafford Park or a smaller Stretford workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
When British Westinghouse began building its vast electrical works at Trafford Park in 1899, it turned Ernest Terah Hooley's 1896 land purchase into the engine room of the world's first planned industrial estate, and the firm that became Metropolitan-Vickers made the district a byword for heavy engineering. That precision instinct still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units of Trafford Park, and every one of them carries a legal duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation against its design figures, so the extraction reads true where it matters.
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