Woodknowledge Wales

Woodknowledge Wales

Inspiring innovation through collaboration

Other Resource

Timber Cladding Videos from RIBA

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These three RIBA videos by Swedish Wood aim to help you understand and learn about the following topics:
– Understand how to design using timber as an external cladding and the design effects that can be achieved
– Understand how to ensure the sustainability of timber cladding and the procurement of legal and sustainable timber
– Understand how to specify and detail cladding
– Understand how to issue fixing instructions to the contractor
– Understand how to issue coating and maintenance advice to the contractor and customer
– Learn about the relevant British Standards and Building Regulations relating to timber cladding

Timber Cladding: How Timber Cladding Can Meet your Project and Quality Objectives: RIBA Plan of Work Stage 1 (07:18) by Swedish Wood

Timber Cladding: Concept Design: RIBA Plan of Work Stage 2 (15:46) by Swedish Wood

Timber Cladding: Technical Design: RIBA Plan of Work Stage 4 (10:15) by Swedish Wood

 

Overheating in New Homes

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This tool and guidance by the Good Homes Alliance (GHA) aims to help planners and design teams identify and mitigate overheating risks in new homes at an early stage.
The tool and guidance has been led by a project team of Susie Diamond (Inkling), Julie Godefroy (Julie Godefroy Sustainability) and Nicola O’Connor (Mandarin Research) with support and feedback from an expert steering group, the GHA team and stakeholder workshops.
The steering group has consisted of the following experts:

  • Lynne Sullivan OBE, Chair, Good Homes Alliance
  • Michael Swainson, BRE
  • Anastasia Mylona, CIBSE
  • Joe Baker, London Borough of Haringey
  • Guy Thompson, The Concrete Centre
  • Dr Victoria Tink, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
  • Chris Twinn, Twinn Sustainability Innovation
  • Tom Dollard, Pollard Thomas Edwards

Open the Tool and Guidance Here
 
 

Airtightness, Vapour Control and Breathability

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The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) launched a new industry briefing paper in August 2019, part of a series that aims at generating a greater understanding of the roles, capabilities and related issues concerning natural fibre insulation (NFI). In doing this, they hope to enable industry to deliver better buildings designed to take advantage of the significant building performance benefits of NFIs.
Airtightness, vapour control and breathability play a critical role in the operational performance of buildings. Understanding how they work together enables us to control air leakage, maximise energy efficiency, optimise indoor air quality and ensures durability of the building fabric.
The paper has been authored by Mark Lynn, ASBP Vice-Chair & Managing Director of Eden Renewables/Thermafleece, and peer reviewed by members of the ASBP’s Natural Fibre Insulation Group.
Open Here

Wood in Construction in the UK: An Analysis of Carbon Abatement Potential (BioComposites Centre)

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This report on the greenhouse gas abatement potential of increasing the use of timber in construction in the UK, led by the BioComposites Centre at Bangor University, informed the Committee on Climate Change’s 2018 report on the role of Biomass in a low-carbon economy.

  • The main objective of the report was to develop a detailed understanding of the emissions savings that could be achieved through greater use of timber-framed techniques as well as newer engineered wood products like cross-laminated timber when compared on a like-for-like with other construction materials.
  • The paper sets out scenarios for increasing the share of homes built with timber frames to up to 270,000 per year, which would deliver 8-1.0 Mt CO2e/yr lower total embodied emissions in 2050, along with carbon sequestration of around 3 Mt CO₂e/yr.
  • It also considers a similar contribution from use of engineered wood products in public and commercial buildings, although the evidence is less strong.
  • It looks at fire risk, thermal efficiency and indoor air quality in timber structures drawing on stakeholder evidence.

Down load the report via the Committee on Climate Change website here.

Independent Review of Affordable Housing Supply

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The 22 key recommendations of the Independent Review of Affordable Housing Supply for Wales (Final Report April 2019) for the Minister of Housing and Regeneration Rebecca Evans AM are shown below. For the full report see here.

Summary of Key Recommendations

Understanding housing need

1. The Welsh Government should mandate local authorities to provide Local Housing Market Assessments (LHMAs) based on a consistent timetable, data and methodology across housing tenures. LHMAs should be refreshed every two years and rewritten every five years, and submitted to the Welsh Government. Jointly commissioned LHMAs should also be explored.
2. The Welsh Government statistical service should work with local authorities to agree data sets for use in the LHMA, Local Development Plan (LDP) and other housing requirements work.

Housing quality standards 

3. The Welsh Government should develop new consolidated and simplified standards for new build grant funded and S106 homes. The new standards should be easier to use and should not have conflicting requirements. The new standards should concentrate on minimum space standards, including storage inside and outside.
4. The Welsh Government should introduce a requirement for all new affordable homes to be near zero carbon / EPC ‘A’ using a fabric first approach from 2021, supplemented by technology (renewables) if required.
5. The Welsh Government should set a longer term goal of 2025 at the latest to have the same standards for all homes irrespective of tenure. 

Modern Methods of Construction

6. The Welsh Government should continue to support the trialling of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) to help establish which methods can contribute to the objective of increasing the scale and pace of affordable housing provision with the existing resources available.
7. The Welsh Government should develop a strategy to map out how Wales could further use off-site manufacturing (OSM) and MMC to deliver near zero carbon homes along with an appropriate timetable for achieving this.

Rent policy

8. The Welsh Government should implement a five year rent policy from 2020-21, providing stability for tenants and landlords.
9. Further flexibilities should be introduced into the Welsh Government’s rent formula regime in relation to bungalows (a higher upward differential) in order to better differentiate them from flats and the locational index (a limit on annual adjustment) in line with the recommendations of the Heriot Watt report.
10.There should be a focus on landlords considering Value for Money (VfM) alongside affordability. An explicit annual assessment on cost efficiencies should be part of the rationale for justifying any rent increase.

Local Authorities as enablers and builders

11.The Welsh Government should encourage local authorities (LAs) to use the flexibilities that the lifting of the borrowing cap creates to support delivery of new affordable housing supply. Where appropriate, LAs should have the freedom and flexibility to access grant from the Welsh Government direct or through wholly owned Local Housing Company structures.
12.The Welsh Government should encourage LAs and housing associations (HAs) to work in partnership to share skills, capacity and resources, and work collectively, through local and regional procurement frameworks, to support local supply chains.

Public sector land

13.An arms-length body should be established by the Welsh Government to act as a hub for public sector land management and professional services. This body should work alongside individual departments / bodies to provide capacity and resources to accelerate development of public land assets and to support greater consistency and efficiency in managing those assets.
14.The Welsh Government should mandate the mapping of all public land and require owners to publish the development potential for the land they own.

Financing affordable housing

15.The Welsh Government should reform grant funding to introduce a new flexible long term five year Affordable Housing Supply Partnerships model which combines grant funding certainty and flexibility whilst testing grant VfM. The new funding model should be based on principles of fairness, quality, and grant VfM transparency.
16.A number of current funding pots should be consolidated to focus capital and revenue funding on core tenures determined nationally reflecting needs assessments at national, regional and local levels. 
17.The new model should test the contribution of private finance and alternative finance models to stretch grant resources to maximise output and demonstrate grant VfM.
18.The new grant system should consider the use of both grant and equity funding interchangeably within the overall capital investment pot, in order to facilitate both new and existing financing models which are capable of demonstrating the necessary regulatory oversight required for public investment.
19.Further consideration should be given to the need for a housing infrastructure and regeneration fund to sit alongside the main grant programme to unlock larger more complex sites.
20.Access to grant and equity funding should be made available to Local Authorities able to contribute low cost finance to deliver grant VfM.

Dowry and Major Repairs Allowance

21.The Welsh Government should commission an independent financial review of the Welsh Large Scale Voluntary Transfers (LSVTs) in receipt of Dowry and the Housing Revenue Accounts of local authorities in receipt of MRA. The Review should scrutinise business plans post the achievement of Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) in 2020, including financial metrics together with cost KPIs to examine whether continued receipt of Dowry / MRA on a rolling 5 yearly review period basis can be justified.
22.LSVTs and local authorities should be required to demonstrate an accelerated programme of decarbonisation of existing homes in return for an ongoing commitment to Dowry and MRA.
Read the full report here

Net Zero The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming

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In this report, the Committee on Climate Change recommends a new emissions target for the UK: net-zero greenhouse gases by 2050.
This recommendation is based on the latest scientific evidence on climate change  as well as considering the appropriate role of the UK
in the global challenge to limit future temperature increases. The CCC has built a new understanding of the potential to achieve deep emissions reduction in the UK and made a fresh appraisal of the costs and benefits to the UK economy of doing so.
The CCC has concluded that net-zero is necessary, feasible and cost-effective.
Necessary – to respond to the overwhelming evidence of the role of greenhouse gases in driving global climate change.
Feasible – because the technologies and approaches that will deliver net-zero are now understood and can
be implemented with strong leadership from government.
Cost effective – because falls in the cost of key technologies permit net-zero within the very same costs that were accepted as the
likely costs by Parliament in 2008 when it legislated the present 2050 target.
The full report can be downloaded here.

Welsh Timber Frame Capacity Report. March 2019.

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This report was commissioned to update the research carried out during the summer of 2017, to revisit the impact of Timber Frame house building in Wales. This paper is prepared to highlight to the Welsh Assembly and the Housing Market in particular that the Timber Frame sector is strong and active throughout Wales. The report notes however that for off-site manufactured product to be truly successful, a number of changes are necessary, not least of which is an acceptance by clients that investment in manufacturing capacity requires far greater transparency of forward demand and commitment to the supply side that it will be committed to and delivered.
Read the report here.

Prosperity for all: A low Carbon Wales

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Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales. Was published by Welsh Government on 21 March 2019. It sets out how WG will meet their first carbon budget (2016-2020). The Plan sets out 100 policies and proposals, broken down by all portfolios, which demonstrate the collective Cabinet commitment to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy in the years ahead.
The Plan outlines the Welsh Government’s approach to cut emissions and transition to a low carbon economy in a way which maximises wider benefits for Wales, ensuring a fairer, healthier and more equal society. Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural  Affairs made clear at the launch that, “this can only be achieved by collective action across Government, business and society.”
The Plan pulls together 76 existing pieces of policy from across the Welsh Government, UK Government and the EU where decarbonisation is integrated either as a direct outcome or a wider benefit. Some of these are new Welsh Government policies which have come on stream since the start of the budget period, such as the Economic Action Plan and Renewable Energy Targets, or revamped policies such as Planning Policy Wales where decarbonisation is now a central pillar.
Read the Plan here

UK Homes Not Fit for the Future

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New policies to support substantial increase in use of timber in construction recommended by the Committee on Climate Change.
Front cover and one page from report showing lay out‘UK homes are not fit for the future. Greenhouse gas emission reductions from UK housing have stalled, and efforts to adapt the housing stock for higher temperatures, flooding and water scarcity are falling far behind the increase in risk from the changing climate. The quality, design and use of homes across the UK must be improved now to address the challenges of climate change. Doing so will also improve health, well-being and comfort, including for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those living with chronic illnesses. The quality, design and use of homes across the UK must be improved now to address the challenges of climate change. This is the conclusion of the Committee on Climate Change in their report, UK Housing: Fit for the Future?‘
This is a damning report on the lack of progress across the UK, but among a wide ranging set of recommendations Woodknowledge Wales are encouraged to see that the increased use of wood is being highlighted as a key policy recommendation to  ‘Develop new policies to support a substantial increase in the use of wood in construction. This will need to focus on overcoming a range of cultural, skills and financial barriers in the construction sector. Undertake low-regrets action (essentially low cost win wins) to support the assessment and bench marking of whole-life carbon in buildings with a view to informing the future policy framework.’
More details here.

Scotland’s Forest Strategy 2019-2029

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This Strategy provides an overview of contemporary Scottish forestry, and presents their 50-year vision for Scotland’s forests and woodlands, and sets out a 10-year framework for action.  It places forestry policy at the heart of government.

Concentric rings of different colours illustrating how Scotlands Forestry Strategy fits in with national and iUN strategies and policies.

One of the figures from the report showing how the 50 year vision for forestry in Scotland fits in with the proposed 10 year strategy, key national outcomes and United Nations sustainable development goals

The Strategy is a keystone  for forestry in Scotland, underpinned by new legislation and new organisational arrangements which build on the 100-year legacy of the work of the Forestry Commission in Scotland. It balances the need for long-term continuity and the need for flexibility when responding to emerging issues and opportunities.
The Strategy has the principles of sustainable forest management at its core, including an adherence to the principle of ‘the right tree, in the right place, for the right purpose’. In addition, it recognises the need for better integration of forestry with other land uses and businesses. This approach will enable forestry in Scotland to continue to deliver an extensive and expanding range of economic, environmental and social benefits, now and in the future.
See the full report here.