The government has set ambitious targets to deliver 1.5 million new homes across England and Wales over the next five years. As well as creating much-needed new homes to ease pressure on demand, this will generate billions of pounds for the economy through jobs, investment in infrastructure and amenities, and the construction supply chain.
This is according to a new report by the Home Builders Federation, reports Property Industry Eye. The report urges the government to ease constraints on delivery, such as the obstructive planning system and barriers to mortgage affordability. Labour promises to make timely interventions to address these issues.
The benefits of timber in home building
At the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, experts highlighted the key role that timber frame manufacturers will play in helping the government to meet its 1.5 million new homes target. Builders Merchant News reports that construction specialists convened to discuss sustainable ways to address the housing crisis.
Structural timber is arguably an underused resource in England, where just 9 per cent of homes are timber framed, compared to about 90 per cent in Scotland. The previous government pledged to boost the use of timber in construction as part of the bid to find more sustainable and less energy intensive alternatives to materials such as steel and concrete.
When sourced from responsibly managed forests, timber is a renewable building material and doesn’t deplete the earth’s natural resources as the manufacturing of finite materials such as steel or concrete do.
Timber also has a lower embodied carbon footprint than steel or concrete, meaning that it requires less energy during production, manufacturing and installation. Furthermore, well-managed timber forests absorb and store millions of tonnes of carbon, reducing the amount of harmful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Timber frame buildings often have shorter construction times than other materials, which will further help the government to meet house building targets. The timber frames can be partly constructed off-site, and they are more lightweight and thus faster and easier to transport and assemble.
The view of timber construction experts
A panel of construction specialists convened in Liverpool to discuss the role that structural timber can play in the homebuilding plans.
The panel was headed up by Mike Reader, MP for Northampton South. He said: “There are a lot of different build solutions that are going to help to get us to 1.5 million homes – and timber solutions are part of them. Vistry, who I met today, are doing 6,000 homes a year using structural timber in their developments.”
“We need to make sure planning [law] allows builders to have repeatable products. Because we know in the industry, and we’ve seen in other parts of the public sector specifically, that repeatability drives down cost and enables us to innovate especially using products like timber.”
Commenting on the importance of industry collaboration with government he said: “I was with Sarah [Jones – Minister for Industry] this morning, and she committed to a panel of industry representatives, and the STA [Structural Timber Association] would be another we could commit to. The government is going to listen.”
The perspective of social housing groups
The UK has been facing a housing crisis for decades that has intensified in recent years, as the availability of housing stock has diminished or is of very low quality, and not enough new homes have been built. This has led to a huge rise in people in temporary accommodation or permanently homeless.
Branwen Evans from Places for People said: “There are 150,000 children in temporary accommodation. And so we need to build fast. We need to get going and get stuff built.”
“We should build the right quality homes. But we shouldn’t do this at the expense of the planet either. It’s really important that we think about what is the cost. The great thing about timber is it is much more environmentally friendly.
She added: “I’ve been out to factories where timber panels are being made and you can see it’s really consistent and so you get a really consistent quality product. [With timber] you can build a lot faster.”
The view of the Structural Timber Association
Andrew Carpenter, Chief Executive Officer of the Structural Timber Association, said: “There are two things we [structural timber] are inextricably linked with – the building of 1.5 million homes over the course of the Parliament. We can contribute as a sector a third of those.
“The second thing is growth. Decarbonisation has got to be one of the planks of the growth strategy. It’s time for timber. The opportunity of a lifetime has to be grasped in the lifetime of the opportunity. And that opportunity is now.”
The potential for timber to meet demand exists
According to Builders Merchant News, the potential for the timber industry to meet extra demand exists. The article states that the structural timber manufacturing sector has the capacity to double supply within a short period of time. This equates to 100,000 timber frame homes per year, and one in three of the extra 300,000 homes needed per year.
This figure is reached by dividing the Labour government’s house building target of 1.5 million during their term in parliament by five. Furthermore, the article claims that timber frame homes will deliver a 16 per cent saving in carbon emissions during construction compared to other materials.
The construction of houses also generates the need for further construction of amenities such as shops, schools, and healthcare facilities. This opens up further opportunities for the greater use of sustainable timber in construction.