Wrexham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Wrexham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Wrexham
Wrexham is a north-east Wales city, granted city status in 2022, in a county borough of around 135,000, home to Wrexham AFC and to one of the largest industrial estates in Europe.
The signature trade is manufacturing - the food and biopharma production, the transmission machining and precision manufacturing, and the rubber and packaging - across the Bryn Lane and Redwither estates of the Wrexham Industrial Estate, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Wrexham 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 Bryn Lane plant to the single-bench Wrexham units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Wrexham and the rest of north-east Wales it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Steam, dust and vapour extraction across the food and biopharma production lines of the industrial estate, where organic dust and process vapour need capture at source.
Oil-mist, grinding and machining extraction across the gearbox and precision-machining units, where metalworking-fluid mist needs capture proven.
VOC, dust and fume extraction across the rubber, tyre and packaging lines, where process fume and dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bryn Lane and Redwither units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Wrexham 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 Wrexham University and the Wrexham Maelor Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Wrexham
We are out under Wrexham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A gearbox and transmission machining plant on Bryn Lane in Wrexham had an oil-mist extraction unit over a CNC line letting a fine metalworking-fluid haze escape into the shop because its coalescing filter was saturated. We measured the capture at the enclosure and checked the mist-collector filter state. It failed on the saturated filter and the mist breakthrough, even with the fan pulling to spec. We fitted the test around the line's tool-change window so machining was not interrupted.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Wrexham 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 Bryn Lane 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 Wrexham line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and biopharma 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.
On most Wrexham sites - the Bryn Lane 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 Wrexham 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 Wrexham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Redwither 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 food and biopharma manufacturing bay, a transmission and precision machining 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 Bryn Lane and Redwither Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider north-east Wales.
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 Bryn Lane production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Bryn Lane unit will ask to see.
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 Bryn Lane or a smaller Wrexham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bryn Lane units, term-time access at the Wrexham university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Food and biopharma manufacturing, transmission and precision machining, rubber, tyres and packaging, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Bryn Lane and Redwither Business Park and across the wider north-east Wales.
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