AN EXPERT PANEL at Labour Party Conference has debated the use of structural timber to accelerate housebuilding to meet the Government’s 1.5 million home target.

A panel convened this week (Tuesday) at Labour Party Conference in Liverpool to discuss finding sustainable ways to solve the housing crisis.

The panel was headed up by Mike Reader MP – Member of Parliament for Northampton South in front of a packed audience.

Mike Reader MP 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.”

In a plea to the sector, he added: “We want you to come to us and help us deliver on our missions.”

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.

“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. “

She continued: “(with timber) you can build a lot faster.”

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 Labour Government has set itself the target of building some 1.5 million homes over the course of the Parliament.[i]

This equates to an average of 300,000 new homes each year – a figure never achieved by any Government in British history.[ii]

Timber frame is the lowest carbon material available. it can deliver a 16 percent carbon saving during construction and it takes less time to build a sustainable timber frame house, than using other materials.

There is existing capacity in the established structural timber manufacturing sector to rapidly double timber frame manufacturing output to achieve 100,000 homes per annum – equivalent to 1-in-3 of the 300,000 homes needed each year.

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