Government Proposes Plan to Increase Use of Timber in Construction 

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03 March 2025

Plans to increase the use of timber in construction to boost economic growth, rural jobs & housebuilding targets, have been announced by the government.

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The government’s “Timber in Construction Roadmap” promotes the increased use of timber in the construction sector to help solve the housing crisis and achieve 2050 net-zero targets.

As a renewable, low-carbon resource, timber has been identified as an ideal building material for a net-zero future. Using timber as a construction material can reduce embodied emissions in a single building by 20 percent to 60 percent. It also has carbon storage properties, with buildings storing up to 400 percent more carbon when built out of engineered timber products compared to when built with concrete. 

Despite this, only nine per cent of English new build homes were timber framed in 2019. According to the roadmap, there is currently a lack of awareness of the properties of timber as a building material. The government wants to dispel misconceptions around its use, such as the cost and maintenance requirements.

However, there are risks. Timber is highly combustible and can contribute to fire spread with impacts on the structural stability of buildings, which can inhibit evacuation and fire response procedures. The risk of smouldering combustion, and the potential delamination of engineered mass timber can contribute to the unpredictability of fire outbreaks. 

The government says that it is possible to safely increase the use of mass engineered timber in some low- to mid-rise commercial buildings “where the risks are adequately assessed, and the consequences of failure accounted for”. It wants to work with the Building Safety Regulator to better understand the longevity of engineered mass timber products in the UK, regarding the impacts of water ingress, humidity & UV exposure.

Alex Goodfellow, Chair of the Confederation of Timber Industries, and CEO of Donaldson Offsite said: “Timber frame construction is a well-proven technology and business model for delivering houses rapidly and sustainably while improving quality.  By accelerating this growth we can build more low-carbon housing today while providing a market pull for expanding forests. As a supply chain we will support the government to deliver on all of the goals in the Roadmap and help build a more sustainable future.”

Picture: a photograph of a pile of timber logs. Image Credit: Unsplash

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 03 March 2025

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