Bright prospects beyond the pain

UK construction remains in the doldrums. We should be knocking up properties at a rate of 250,000 a year to meet forecast 2020 housing needs. Latest estimates for 2011 show us off target by about 130,000.

The government says it is now focusing on building and appreciates its key role in firing up the rest of the economy, pledging a raft of measures, from releasing public land, to relaxing planning rules, to give it a boost. And Jake Berry MP, parliamentary private secretary to the housing minister, recently said these should help us get up to 230,000 new homes a year by 2015.

Timber frame companies seem a touch sceptical about politicians’ latest promises and predictions. “We’d have to be going some to double housebuilding in four years,” said one. “I think you’d call that a robust recovery.”

The timber frame sector also acknowledges that, like the rest of construction, it has found the going tough. This year the social housing sector, where it had been doing particularly well, seems to have been especially hard hit as government spending cuts bite. Renewed economic uncertainty is also reported to have unnerved new build.

But despite the pain, the timber frame sector does not seem to have lost its confidence that, in the medium to longer term, it will increasingly be the UK’s build method of choice. In fact, some believe that it is already starting to gain market share again, albeit the market is way smaller than it was.

The energy and other environmental benefits of building in wood have not gone away in the downturn and the timber construction sector continues to develop its products to give them more of an edge in this department and, at the same time, make them more competitive. One company aims to replace ever more expensive steel components in its buildings with engineered wood. Another is upping the level of prefabrication of its houses, simultaneously adding value and cutting customers’ site time and costs.

The UK Timber Frame Association (UKTFA) is also adopting new strategies to strengthen the industry. Its Academy education programme aims to improve supply chain efficiency in the sector. It has also launched quarterly ‘think tank’ meetings with specifiers and their clients to find out where they want timber in construction to go. A new UKTFA group for self-build has been set up too.

The other positive is that, while housing building has been down, other areas of construction have been more resilient and turning increasingly to wood. The big retailers are out-competing each other to build ‘eco stores’, with timber front and centre. And the ever expanding budget hotel companies have made timber frame “part of their business model”, according to a manufacturer.

As the Wood Awards showed more than ever this year (attracting over 300 entries) timber is also still increasingly winning the hearts and minds of architects and designers, and not just for its eco-merits, but for technical and design performance too.

All of which is good news for the timber business generally as, where timber building goes, timber products follow. Leaf through the Wood Awards supplement, enclosed with this edition, and you’ll see buildings not only constructed in wood, but rich with timber windows, doors, floors, stairs, cladding, shingles, decking, fittings, fixtures and furniture.