The forestry and timber industry is ready to invest and deliver solutions for sustainable construction and wider development, but it needs a coherent, long-term, coherent government forest strategy, says Confor chief executive Stuart Goodall.
Once again, the UK forestry and timber sector is approaching a fork in the road – do we choose industry growth or a drawn-out decline. And once again the industry isn’t able to make that choice itself.
The big picture context is favourable. Demand for wood is growing, governments are looking for solutions to deliver economic growth, housing, net zero and timber security, and the industry has an almost unique offer – it can simultaneously tick economic and environmental boxes.
But zoom in and we see the same problem as before – the industry doesn’t have the freedom to act and choose the direction it wants to take.
I summarise the situation as – the industry cannot plant trees without permission; it cannot harvest trees without permission and in-between those two events governments will tell the sector how it should manage our forests.
Those controls are becoming ever more burdensome and costly. As well as further setting forestry apart from other industries, government regulation is increasingly undermining delivery of the very things that governments say they want – more jobs, reduced atmospheric carbon and more places for people and wildlife.
How we go forward – how government lets the industry go forward, will be key to which direction we go in next. Earlier this year, a 50-year production forecast was published for future UK softwood supply. It shines a stark light on the future.
Over the next three decades, the UK will see a significant increase in homegrown timber availability as forests planted in previous decades reach maturity.
This presents a major opportunity for investment in sawmilling, wood processing, engineered timber products, low-carbon construction and more.
But beyond that lies a warning. Unless more productive forests are planted now and existing productive forests maintained, timber availability is forecast to decline sharply over the following decades, threatening jobs, investment and the resilience of the supply chain.
This is not simply a forestry issue. It is an industrial strategy issue.
Wood processors invest for decades, not years. New sawmills, manufacturing plants and engineered timber facilities require confidence that a secure supply of raw material will exist long into the future. Without that confidence, investment will increasingly flow elsewhere.
That word confidence is key to addressing both challenges, and governments are in many ways the biggest determinant of confidence, especially in the longer term. Industry is seeking a long-term partnership. Increasing productive woodland creation, encouraging greater use of timber in construction, supporting domestic manufacturing and providing long-term policy certainty should be shared priorities.
Intriguingly, we have new administrations and ministers in Scotland and Wales, and a new minister in England.
The UK forestry and timber industry has demonstrated time and again that it is ready to invest, innovate and deliver. We now need a coherent, long-term policy framework, and greater stability and certainty to bring back confidence.
The choices that we make today, the choices that governments make, will determine the strength of the UK’s forestry and timber sector for decades to come.
