Build in timber to fulfil Labour’s housing vision
In 1918 Liberal Premier David Lloyd George heralded the end of the First World War by promising 500,000 new ‘homes fit for heroes’ within three years. Fast forward more than the century, and Boris Johnson’s Conservatives gained a commanding mandate for their 2019 pledge to build at least a million new homes over their term of office. And today Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is grappling with the not insignificant challenge of building 1.5 million homes over the course of the Parliament.
Vision is easy. Delivery is much harder. Housing Secretary Angela Rayner is battling to reverse perhaps a century of underinvestment and silo thinking when it comes to housing. The result of this malaise is that England has some 434 dwellings per 1,000 people – some 26 percent lower than France at 590.
Shamefully housing precariousness now seems hardwired into our collective way of life. Homelessness in the UK doubled over the period between 2010 and 2024. Approximately one in 200 households are stranded in temporary accommodation or are on the street. Around 140,000 children do not have a permanent place to call home. And in 2023 the taxpayer spent some £1.8 billion on temporary accommodation, more than double in real terms what was spent in 2013.
Sir Keir Starmer’s housing target amounts to 300,000 net new homes each year – a figure never achieved by any Government in British history. To meet the target some 1000 new homes will have to built in the UK every single day.
The public is rightly demanding that Labour gets Britain building. But at the same time, the Government has the gargantuan task of decarbonising the economy and accelerating the UK’s path to Net Zero. The built environment is responsible for approximately 25 percent of total UK greenhouse gas emissions.
If Sir Keir Starmer is to succeed where many a Premiership has failed on housing, the Government must embrace change - change in how we build and the materials we use.
Timber frame takes less time to install than masonry and can, according to Future Homes Standards, deliver a 16 percent carbon saving during construction. 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 one-in-three of the 300,000 homes needed each year.
Britain’s housebuilders are getting on board, with companies including Vistry, Taylor Wimpey, Barratt Developments, Cala Homes and Avant Homes seeing the benefits of building in timber frame. It’s high time Whitehall showed similar enthusiasm in putting timber at the heart of its strategy for housebuilding.
Our industry requires clear actionable policies, policies that put structural timber at the forefront of supporting Government in the delivery of their housing goals. The policies put in place now will have a significant impact on the UK’s ability to deliver housing targets, great places to live and reducing carbon to achieve net zero. This will be the legacy for decades to come.
In 2025 Whitehall must support industry to build in timber and fulfil Labour’s housing vision.
Andrew Carpenter is Chief Executive Officer of the Structural Timber Association.
