BDC Magazine featured the viewpoint from Södra’s Jeremy English, who started by noting that ‘unfortunately, no current conversation about timber is complete without comment on the government’s catch-all ban on combustible materials’, and highlighted the fact that the height threshold for combustible materials’ lowering to 11m in the bill is subject to committee and consultation stages for the bill, ‘pushed back’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He commented that architects as well as builders and structural timber suppliers, alongside ‘many others passionate about the good that wood can do for this country’, are ‘now rightly concerned about what the future holds for multi-storey timber buildings’, while ‘many other countries are passing legislation to promote the use of more timber products in construction’.

Noting that ‘there’s no question’ that the fire safety bill ‘is intended to enhance occupant safety’, Mr English believes that the sector ‘mustn’t lose sight of timber’s inherent qualities as a building material’, and ‘benefits that have made it an increasingly popular choice for structural components’; including that ‘it’s easy to transport and modify, it minimises noise pollution on site and it’s highly cost-efficient to produce and use’.

He stated that the timber industry is ‘calling for an objective investigation’ that is ‘led by facts and science rather than emotion’, as ‘to quash the use of wood in structures over 1mm would be to fly in the face of the sustainable evolution that the construction industry and, more importantly, the nation so desperately needs’.

Mr English cited a November 2019 report from the all party parliamentary group for the timber industries, which stated that ‘without using safe structural timber we cannot meet’ the government’s net zero carbon commitment, ‘and we will fail to address the construction industry’s contribution to climate change’.

Continuing on, he claimed that a ‘more sustainable, decarbonised economy can allow the planet to repair itself’, adding that the ‘building materials we choose can be a key contributor to this’. Choosing timber means ‘choosing a building material that would not adversely impact or inconvenience the way we live our lives’, and it is a material ‘that can help build a more sustainable future’.

On that note, Mr English remarked that ‘responsibly managed forests have always been the earth’s air cleaners and will continue to be so forever’, with a ‘by-product’ of such forests being ‘high-quality, sustainable timber’ that has ‘already taken from the air and locked away decades’ worth of harmful CO2.

He concluded by citing Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistleton Architects, who was part of a group of architects and developers that lobbied the government earlier this year ‘not to ban structural timber’ under the new rules. Glenn Howells Architects, AHMM, dRMM, Waugh Thistleton and Urban Splash said they believed including timber in a potentially extended combustibles ban ‘is not only unnecessary on safety grounds but would badly damage the rise of mass timber construction’.

Such construction is ‘seen as a crucial means of responding to the climate emergency because it could slash the building industry’s carbon emissions’, they added, and Mr English quoted Mr Wagh as stating that the reality is the evidence says we’ve got 12 years left to sort out climate change – we’ve got to start changing the way we do things. And we’ve got to keep pushing the message about the safety of CLT. It’s not only quicker to put up; it’s safer, healthier, lighter and locks away carbon’.

The Architects Climate Action Network also argued that timber ‘should be exempt from the ban’, urging architects to respond to the consultation, and followed the recently expressed views of Willmott Dixon chief executive officer Rick Wilmott, who warned that ‘efforts to eradicate’ combustible building materials post Grenfell risk going ‘too far’, and create ‘huge’ challenges for developers.

Most recently, the timber industry revealed plans to spend £500,000 on fire tests over the next 18 months on cross laminated timber (CLT) to ‘prove’ its safety in housing and large building use.