WPA Awards celebrate excellence

“This ever popular two-day event goes from strength to strength,” said Gordon Ewbank, WPA director. “In uncertain trading times, it’s always good to remind ourselves that wood protection technologies help to make the most of wood as a modern, sustainable building material and to celebrate the very best design projects in the sector.

This year’s main event sponsors were Arxada, BSW Group and Impra, while Accsys Technologies worked with the WPA team to create the beautiful 2022 Awards. These were made from Accoya Color –  a new innovative product, which is coloured grey from surface to core. The grey colour pre-empts the process of natural weathering, ensuring a consistently beautiful appearance from day one. Handrail Creations skilfully crafted the award from the original template.

The award winners were as follows:

Flame Retardant Treated Wood Project of the Year: Woodsafe, for the Illulissat Icefjord Centre, Greenland. Interior oak panels adorn this fantastic building, all treated with Woodsafe PRO flame retardant.

Modified Wood Project of the Year Award: Accsys Technologies, for the innovative use of an Accoya façade and mullions in the Google HQ project in London, which is currently under construction.

Preservative Treated Wood Project: Marley, for the use of CitiDeck 30 year life, anti-slip decking construction at Clifford's Tower, York.

WPA Trader of the Year: BSW Timber for outstanding customer service and the BSW Big Book marketing initiative.

The half day conference  on the following morning got to grips with the big issues and talking points of the wood protection industry. Charlie Law, Timber Development UK (TDUK) sustainability director spoke on the role of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), while Ed Suttie, director (research) at BRE presented the year seven performance results of the WPA field trial of preservative impregnated fence posts.

This was followed by David Hopkins, managing director of the TDUK, who updated delegates on the treated wood action plan and progress towards independent QA of treatment processes; and Callum Hill, of JCH Industrial Ecology Ltd, who posed the question, ‘Wood modification: hope or hype?’.