Witney · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Witney workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Witney
Witney is the largest town in West Oxfordshire, home to around 30,000 on the River Windrush, a Cotswold gateway market town world-famous for 300 years of blanket-making, its Blanket Hall and Buttercross.
The signature trade is manufacturing - the medical-device manufacturing, the advanced engineering and light manufacturing, and the food and drink and hospitality - across the Windrush Industrial Park and Station Lane estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Witney process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Windrush Industrial Park units down to the smallest Witney workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Witney and across Oxfordshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Cleanroom-extract, solvent-vapour and coating-fume testing across the sensor and test-strip manufacturing lines of the town's flagship employer, where cleanroom coating and printing need capture under containment.
Weld-fume, oil-mist and spray-booth extraction across the machining, fabrication and light-manufacturing units, where metal fume and mist need capture proven.
Cooking-fume, brewing-vapour and canopy-grease extraction across the food producers and the town-centre kitchens, carrying the town's brewing heritage, where the cooklines and brewing benches each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Windrush Industrial Park and Station Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Witney 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 Abingdon and Witney College and the Witney Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Witney
We are out under Witney's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A medical-device manufacturing plant in Witney had a cleanroom-extract and solvent-vapour system over a sensor-coating line pulling weak, letting vapour drift in the controlled area. We measured the capture at the line and checked the ducting and fan for losses. It failed on the low capture and the vapour breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. The line ran solvent coating under cleanroom conditions, so the containment and vapour monitoring backed up the airflow test.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Witney system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Windrush Industrial 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 Witney line.
Where exposure is in question - a medical-device manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For the great majority of Witney sites, from the Windrush Industrial Park 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 Witney 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 Witney duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Station 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 medical-device manufacturing bay, an advanced engineering and light manufacturing 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 Windrush Industrial 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 Windrush Industrial Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Windrush Industrial Park units, term-time access at the Witney university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Medical-device manufacturing, advanced engineering and light manufacturing, food, drink and hospitality, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Windrush Industrial Park and Station Lane Industrial Estate and across the wider Oxfordshire.
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 Windrush Industrial Park or a smaller Witney workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Witney 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.
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