Willenhall · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Willenhall workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Willenhall
Willenhall is the lock town of the Black Country, a place so tied to one trade that it took the nickname Humpshire from the stooped backs of the men who filed locks at the bench. It was the historic centre of the British lock and key industry, home to Josiah Parkes and its Union brand, to Yale and Towne and to John Harper and Co, and by 1855 it counted some 340 lockmakers, most of them in tiny domestic workshops.
The town still turns metal for a living, from the lock and security work carried on at Assa Abloy's Portobello Works to the pressing, machining and engineering units grouped along Owen Road Industrial Estate and Neachells Lane.
Every Willenhall 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 Owen Road Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Willenhall units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Willenhall employers and others across West Midlands it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the presses, lathes and CNC machines that carry Willenhall's lock and key heritage forward, from Assa Abloy's Portobello Works to the machine shops on Owen Road.
Steam-canopy and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food-production units on the Neachells Lane and Owen Road estates, where extraction keeps airborne dust and vapour off the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Willenhall joinery and cabinet shops, capturing hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the town's 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 Willenhall bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is checked against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the schools, colleges and the quality and metallurgical labs that serve the lock, metal and engineering trades around the town.
On the ground in Willenhall
We are out under Willenhall's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A popular fabrication shop in Willenhall had lost control at the bench, its fume extraction arms held back by a partly blocked filter on the unit. We checked static pressure, cleared the tired filter and re-tested every point against benchmark. All points passed once the filter was sorted, and we handed over a signed report. The job was timed for the summer break while the shop was quiet.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Willenhall 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 Owen Road 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 Willenhall line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and metalwork process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
Across most Willenhall sites - the Owen Road Industrial Estate plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Willenhall 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 Willenhall duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Neachells Lane 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 precision engineering and metalwork 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Owen Road Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Willenhall university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 an Owen Road Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Owen Road Industrial Estate and Neachells Lane industrial estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
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 Owen Road Industrial Estate or a smaller Willenhall workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 an Owen Road 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.
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 Willenhall, but an Owen Road Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Market Place canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
Willenhall held 148 skilled locksmiths as early as 1770, and by the mid nineteenth century lock and key making dominated the town, with Josiah Parkes turning out its Union locks and, from 1911, the cylinder locks we still call Yale. That metalworking instinct lives on at Assa Abloy's Portobello Works and the engineering units off Owen Road, where presses, buffing and plating throw off mist, dust and fume. Every one of those processes carries a duty to control what it releases into the air. 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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