Thatcham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Thatcham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Thatcham
Thatcham is a market town of around 25,000 people in West Berkshire, strung along the Kennet valley between Newbury and Reading, and it carries an extraordinary claim - the Guinness Book of Records lists it as the strongest candidate for the oldest continuously inhabited place in Britain, its Mesolithic settlement beside the Kennet reedbeds reaching back some ten thousand years.
Its modern working economy runs on engineering, distribution and the food trades, much of it grouped in the units at Colthrop Business Park on the old paper-mill site and the Thatcham Business Village off Colthrop Way.
Each of those Thatcham 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 Colthrop Business Park units to the one-bench Thatcham workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Thatcham employers and others across Berkshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops across the Colthrop and Lower Way units, where metalworking fluids atomise over every cut.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers that supply the town's shops and the distribution units off Colthrop Way, capturing airborne dust and cooking vapour at source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Thatcham cabinet shops 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 Colthrop Business Park and Thatcham Business Village units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Thatcham bodyshops, in a town whose name is a byword for crash repair - Thatcham Research, the insurers' Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre off Colthrop Way, has set the industry's repair and security standards here since 1969. 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 research and materials-testing laboratories the area is known for, including the crash and safety test facilities on Colthrop Way, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Thatcham
We are out under Thatcham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Face velocity across the fume cupboards at a busy school science lab in Thatcham was reading low, traced to a build-up of debris in the ducting. We carried out a full thorough examination and test, covering velocity readings, smoke visualisation and a filter check. The LEV passed on re-test across the cupboards, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file. The work fitted around opening time so students weren't disturbed.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Thatcham 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 Colthrop Business 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 Thatcham 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Thatcham sites - the Colthrop Business 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 Thatcham 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 Thatcham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Thatcham Business Village 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.
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 Colthrop Business Park or a smaller Thatcham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Colthrop Business Park 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 Colthrop Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Colthrop Business Park and Thatcham Business Village and across the wider Berkshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Colthrop Business Park units, term-time access at the Thatcham university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Colthrop Business Park and Thatcham Business Village, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Berkshire.
Local knowledge
Thatcham gave its name to an entire industry standard: since 1969 the town has been home to Thatcham Research, the insurers' Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre off Colthrop Way, whose crash tests and security ratings shape how new cars across Britain are repaired and insured. That instinct for testing to a measured standard runs through the town's engineering shops and bodyshops, 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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