Whitley Bay · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Whitley Bay workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Whitley Bay
Whitley Bay is a Tyne and Wear seaside resort in North Tyneside, around 38,000, home to the restored Spanish City dome and St Mary's Lighthouse on the Northumberland coast.
The work is hospitality and light industry - the seaside and town-centre catering, the light engineering, and the food manufacturing - across the Hillheads Road and New York estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Whitley Bay 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 Hillheads Road plant to the single-bench Whitley Bay units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Whitley Bay and across Tyne and Wear it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Grease-laden canopy and duct extraction across the seaside and town-centre kitchens, where the cooklines run hard through the season and need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the light-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Steam, flour-dust and mist extraction across the food and bakery producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Hillheads Road and New York units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Whitley Bay 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 the local college and the North Tyneside General Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Whitley Bay
We are out under Whitley Bay's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A light-engineering workshop near Whitley Bay had an oil-mist extraction unit over a machining bench letting a fine coolant haze escape because the coalescing filter had loaded solid. We measured the capture at the enclosure and checked the mist-collector differential. It failed on the saturated filter and the mist breakthrough, even with the fan pulling to spec. The bench machined at load, so the swarf and coolant were handled to the housekeeping standard during the test.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Whitley Bay 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 Hillheads Road 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 Whitley Bay line.
Where exposure is in question - a seaside and hospitality catering 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 Whitley Bay sites - the Hillheads Road 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 Whitley Bay 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 Whitley Bay duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the New York 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 seaside and hospitality catering bay, a light engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Seaside and hospitality catering, light engineering, food manufacturing and bakery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Hillheads Road and New York Industrial Estate and across the wider Tyne and Wear.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hillheads Road units, term-time access at the Whitley Bay university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Hillheads Road and New York Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Tyne and Wear.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Whitley Bay 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.
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 Hillheads Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Whitley Bay, but a Hillheads Road fabrication shop and a Whitley Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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