Timber home structures that can be erected in as few as five days could help turbocharge Britain’s house building, senior Labour politicians have heard.
Increasing the use of structural timber could help alleviate the country’s housing crisis, which is particularly acute in London and the southeast, it has been claimed.
The natural material has lower carbon emissions than steel or concrete, speeds up building through off-site prefabrication and improves energy efficiency.
However, it is not always suitable for constructing high rise blocks of flats, which have previoulsy been seen as an easier way to meet housing targets in the capital.
The Labour Government has pledged to build 1.5million new homes across the course of this Parliament.
Leonie Cooper AM, chair of the London Assembly Environment Committee and member of the Assembly’s Housing Committee, said: “I’ve visited a number of sites where timber frame (houses) were being put up and I was really impressed with how good they were. And one of the things that impressed me was speed of delivery.
“If we want to build 1.5 million homes between now and the end of this Parliament getting a wriggle on is unbelievably important.
“If you are doing a timber frame (home), you are going to be moving faster, a lot faster.”
During a panel discussion, organised by the Structural Timber Association (STA) at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week, Mitchem and Mordan MP Dame Siobhain McDonagh spoke about the urgent need to tackle the housing crisis and the growing number of families forced into temporary accommodation.
Dame Siobhain, who is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Temporary Accommodation, highlighted the fact London boroughs now collectively spend £5.5 million a day on homelessness services, primarily on housing.
The new figures, up from £4.2 million a day in 2023/24, are the latest illustration of the dire state of the city’s housing market, with building having stagnated and hundreds of thousands of Londoners on council waiting lists.
They come amid speculation that London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan is preparing to lower the requirement that 35% of new developments are allocated as social or affordable housing.
Just 347 affordable homes were started across London between April and June - a fraction of the 88,000 new properties the Government says are needed each year in London.
STA CEO Andrew Orriss told the event: “We’re currently delivering about 40,000 houses a year in structural timber.
“The capacity with a modest investment, could be up to 100,000 units per year.
“So straight away if you took the target of building 300,000 houses a year – which is what the 1.5 million target relates to, the timber frame industry could actually deliver 30% of the requirement – much of which it is doing already.”
