Whitstable · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Whitstable workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Whitstable
Whitstable is a working fishing town of around 32,000 people on the north Kent coast, a place the world knows for its oysters - the flat native Ostrea edulis that the Romans prized and that made the town's name at London's Billingsgate market. Its harbour still lands whelks, oysters and aggregate, and now serves as the operations base for the Kentish Flats wind farm out in the Thames Estuary.
Beyond the quay its trade runs through the light-industrial units at the John Wilson Business Park at Chestfield and St Augustine's Business Park at Swalecliffe, alongside the marine and engineering firms that keep the working port and the wind-farm workboats running.
Every one of those Whitstable processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the John Wilson Business Park units to the smaller Whitstable workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Whitstable and the rest of Kent it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the lathes and machining centres in the units at the John Wilson Business Park and the Joseph Wilson Industrial Estate, and in the marine-engineering shops that service the harbour fleet and the Kentish Flats workboats.
Steam canopies and washdown extraction across Whitstable's oyster and shellfish processing, the whelk and fish handling on the harbour quay, and the bakeries and kitchens that supply the town's food trade.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Whitstable's cabinet makers, boatbuilders and joinery shops, 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 John Wilson and St Augustine's units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Whitstable and Chestfield 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 science departments of the town's schools and the nearby Canterbury colleges, and the water and shellfish testing labs the oyster trade depends on, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Whitstable
We are out under Whitstable's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A family-run electronics bench in Whitstable had lost control at the solder benches, the tip extraction nozzles affected by a worn fan impeller. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Capture came back within benchmark once a blocked filter was cleared, written up in a full LEV report for the COSHH file. The foreman kept us going with bacon rolls through the morning.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Whitstable 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 John Wilson 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 Whitstable 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.
For most Whitstable sites - from the John Wilson Business Park units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Whitstable 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 Whitstable duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the St Augustine's 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 John Wilson Business Park and St Augustine's Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Whitstable 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.
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 John Wilson Business Park or a smaller Whitstable workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Whitstable, but a John Wilson Business Park fabrication shop and a Harbour Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 John Wilson Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 John Wilson Business Park and St Augustine's Business Park and across the wider Kent.
Local knowledge
In 1829 the brothers Charles and John Deane sailed from Whitstable to trial the diving helmet they had developed, working alongside the town's salvage crews and founding the industry that made Whitstable a cradle of British hard-hat diving. That marine-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine and fabrication shops, 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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