Royal Tunbridge Wells · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Royal Tunbridge Wells workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a Kent spa town of around 59,000, known for the Georgian colonnade of the Pantiles and for the dense concentration of professional, financial and insurance offices at its heart.
The signature trade is professional and healthcare services - the offices and dental and clinical labs of the town, the food and craft-brewing trade, and the light engineering and motor trade - across the North Farm Industrial Estate and Longfield Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 North Farm Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells and the rest of Kent it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Bench-extraction and fume-cupboard testing across the dental and clinical labs of the town, where plaster, resin and cobalt-chrome grinding dust is drawn off at the bench and the containment is examined to its safe face velocity.
Steam, mist and fermentation-vapour extraction across the restaurants and microbreweries of the Pantiles and Chapel Place, where cooking fume and brewing vapour need capture at source.
Weld-fume, paint-spray and MOT-bay exhaust extraction across the vehicle and coatings units of the North Farm estate, where metal fume and vehicle exhaust need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the North Farm Industrial Estate and Longfield 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 Tunbridge Wells 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 West Kent College and the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Royal Tunbridge Wells
We are out under Royal Tunbridge Wells's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A dental laboratory in Tunbridge Wells had a bench-mounted extraction over a grinding-and-polishing station pulling weak, letting fine plaster and alloy dust escape into the technician's breathing zone. We measured the capture at the hood face and checked the filter loading. It failed on the low capture and the dust breakthrough, and we specified the filter and remedial work. The lab ground cobalt-chrome, so the metal-dust housekeeping was logged alongside the airflow.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 North Farm 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells line.
Where exposure is in question - a dental and clinical laboratories 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.
For the great majority of Royal Tunbridge Wells sites, from the North Farm Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Longfield 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 dental and clinical laboratories bay, a food, drink and craft brewing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 North Farm Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Dental and clinical laboratories, food, drink and craft brewing, light engineering and motor trade, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around North Farm Industrial Estate and Longfield Road and across the wider Kent.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around North Farm Industrial Estate and Longfield Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Royal Tunbridge Wells 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.
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 Royal Tunbridge Wells, but a North Farm Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Mount Pleasant Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 North Farm 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.
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