Banter 136: 09Sep26 Trees, with Tristram Cary
woodland creation, woodland coverage, timber construction, ancient woodlands, sequestering carbon, structural insulated panels (SIP), cross-laminated timber (CLT), glulams
Video Timeline:
00:00 - 28:00 Presentation
28:00 - 53:00 (end) Q & A
Presentation:
You are welcome to view and/or download this presentation (click on Open in the box above). A markdown version of this file is at the bottom of this page
Meeting Summary:
Sep 09, 2026 11:55 AM LondonID: 834 5460 8536
Quick recap
This meeting focused on Tristram Carey's presentation about woodland creation and timber construction in the UK. Tristram discussed the UK's low woodland coverage (13% in England compared to 31% EU average and 46% worldwide), explaining how ancient woodlands must be managed to continue sequestering carbon rather than becoming carbon traps. He covered timber construction alternatives to concrete and steel, highlighting new engineered timber technologies like structural insulated panels, cross-laminated timber, and glulams that can create stronger, more durable buildings. The presentation included calculations showing that achieving the UK's 16.5% tree cover target by 2050 could potentially provide enough timber for all construction needs, requiring approximately 8.4% of UK land for managed woodland. Tristram explained how DEFRA's England Woodland Creation Offer (UCO) provides subsidies for multiple ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, flood management, and access to nature, with opportunities for parish-level collaboration through community interest companies. The discussion included questions about environmental impacts of treated timber, food production concerns with increased woodland, and climate-appropriate tree planting, with participants sharing insights about local woodland management and future presentation ideas.
Next steps
David
Contact Tristram for the DEFRA Woodland Creation Officer contact details and follow up about arranging a visit/advice for his parish.
Garry
Provide information or a presentation on suitable trees for future climate conditions in urban areas.
Graham
Share Tristram's presentation on the Great Collaboration website.
Collaboration
All participants: Submit one topic idea for a future presentation to Graham via chat or email.
Summary
UK Woodland and Timber Construction
Tristram presented on UK woodland and timber construction, explaining that the UK has very little woodland compared to other countries, with only 13% cover in England versus 31% globally. He discussed historical deforestation causes including Neolithic farming, Tudor shipbuilding, and the Industrial Revolution, which reduced woodland cover from 60-80% in 3000 BC to 5% by 1919. Tristram covered current government initiatives including the England Trees Action Plan and timber construction roadmap, and explained the carbon sequestration process using oak woodland as an example, noting that while maximum sequestration occurs after 30 years at 40 tons of CO2 equivalent per hectare per annum, the total carbon store reaches 1,400 CO2 equivalent per hectare after 200 years.
Carbon Sequestration in Timber Construction
Tristram explained the importance of managing woodlands to maintain carbon sequestration, noting that mature ancient woodlands trap heat while sequestering little new carbon. He discussed the potential for using timber in construction as an alternative to concrete and steel, which could store carbon permanently. Tristram highlighted new engineering technologies making timber construction stronger and more durable, including structural insulated panels, cross-laminated timber, and glued laminated panels, and mentioned examples of tall wooden buildings like one in Trondheim, Norway.
Timber Construction and Sustainability
Tristram presented on timber construction, highlighting examples of successful timber buildings including a Shoreditch office building and the Phoenix Project in Lewes that will store 500,000 tons of CO2 equivalent. He explained the development of Superwood, a new material being researched by companies like Invent Wood and Woodoo that offers superior strength, moisture resistance, and environmental benefits compared to traditional materials. Tristram calculated that to meet UK housing needs of 900,000 homes annually using timber frame construction would require approximately 20,000 square kilometers of woodland, representing 8.4% of the UK's area, suggesting sufficient land could be available if the 16.5% timber target is met.
Woodland Targets and Financial Viability
Tristram presented on woodland targets and financial viability, explaining that a Woodland target of 16.5% by 2050 could fulfill the UK's complete timber requirement through managed mature and ancient woodland. He discussed how DEFRA subsidies can make timber extraction commercially viable by compensating for ecosystem services beyond timber production, noting that engineered wood production in the UK has grown at 15% per annum since 2015. Tristram also outlined opportunities for parish-level woodland creation through DEFRA's England Woodland Creation Offer, explaining that while grants currently require a minimum 2-hectare area, there is potential to group small landowners together through legal entities like community interest companies.
Timber Processing Parish Opportunities
Tristram presented on opportunities for timber and wood processing at parish level, suggesting initiatives like identifying tree planting locations, creating hedgerows, and developing local timber processing industries. Graham expressed interest in approaching their parish council about these opportunities. During the Q&A, Cllr challenged Tristram's claim about wooden houses only lasting a few hundred years, citing an example of a 13th or 14th century house still standing, while Tristram acknowledged the perception but noted modern glulam houses use more timber. Jane raised questions about delignification processes and environmental concerns, though her full question about building in flood areas was not completed in the transcript.
Woodland Management and Planting Plans
Tristram and Jane discussed woodland management and tree planting plans, with Tristram explaining that increasing tree coverage from 13% to 16.5% would still leave sufficient land for agriculture and food production. Tristram emphasised the benefits of mixed species woodland that could be managed for both environmental purposes and timber production, suggesting local community management rather than large-scale clear felling. Jane shared positive insights from a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust presentation about fruit tree planting initiatives, which both participants viewed as promising examples of sustainable woodland management.
Innovative Wood and Concrete Applications
The group discussed innovative uses of wood and concrete, including the use of carbon black-infused concrete as a power storage solution and the potential for mixed species woodland to create building timber. Tristram explained that engineered timber, such as CLT, is water-resistant and dimensionally stable due to cross-ply veneers and water-repelling glue. Andrew raised concerns about timber frames in damp conditions, but Tristram assured him that treated timber, like Accoya, (mostly made from radiata pine) is effective at preventing water damage. Graham suggested combining concrete with timber framing to address potential issues with moisture and power storage.
Forestry and Food Production Changes
The group discussed changes in forestry practices and food production. Frank shared observations about ash dieback in Herefordshire and expressed interest in improving sweet chestnut cultivation for edible nuts. Graham mentioned the Forestry Commission's shift toward mixed woodland instead of dense pine plantations. Tristram raised concerns about soil and water damage from arable farming and suggested hydroponic systems as a potential future food production method, while Jane emphasis!ed the importance of moving away from monocultures toward more diverse food production systems.
Tree Selection for Climate Change
Garry asked for advice on which trees to plant given climate change conditions, noting that previously planted trees struggled with drought and high temperatures. Tristram suggested checking DEFRA's website, which provides recommendations based on location and future climate projections, though Garry expressed concerns about relying on 50-year projections. Frank recommended trees from Central Asia, including walnuts, sweet chestnuts, and apple trees, as they are better adapted to hot summers and deep root systems. Graham requested that all participants suggest future presentation topics, with Garry agreeing to present on calculating carbon footprints for small councils.
Chat:
0:40:37 Andrew Clegg: what about building out of wood in a flood area?
00:42:53 Frank Hemming: Is there an opportunity for mixed species woodland to create building timber?
00:52:25 Jane Carr: Please would you spell akoya? for me :). Accoya (lit's a trade name)_
00:59:21 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset:
https://www.pracbrown.co.uk/top-10-street-trees/
01:01:06 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Would you like a presentation on calculating the carbon footprint for a small council?
Audio-Transcript"
100 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:48.810 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Perfect.
101 00:08:49.120 --> 00:08:49.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Okay.
102 00:08:50.030 --> 00:09:06.319 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Perfect. So I ought to start by explaining that I'm not an expert in English woodland or timber construction, but I have been thinking about it and trying to do something about it in Parish Online for some time, so I think it's a very interesting subject.
103 00:09:06.350 --> 00:09:17.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So I want to… I cover quite a lot of ground, so I'll try to go reasonably quickly. Do ask questions as we go along, if you're… if you don't understand. Next slide, please.
104 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:26.019 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So the first… the first thing is that UK has very little woodland compared to most countries in the world.
105 00:09:26.290 --> 00:09:41.580 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And our lack of woodland is one of the main reasons why our wildlife and habitats are so depleted, so it's very important that we grow it. So, in UK, we've got about 13% cover, in England, 10%, and that compares with Europe, the EU, 31%,
106 00:09:41.660 --> 00:09:50.439 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: total Europe 46%, and the world average 31%, so it's extraordinary that we're so depleted when we've got a very good climate for trees.
107 00:09:50.700 --> 00:09:58.620 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And we also import more than 80% of our timber for construction, which is second only to China.
108 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:04.539 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, so that's quite extraordinary, I think. Next slide.
109 00:10:05.090 --> 00:10:13.350 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And why is… why is the UK so short of woodland? Well, in 3000 BC, they estimate there was 60% to 80% of woodland cover.
110 00:10:13.620 --> 00:10:21.699 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But the Neolithic farmers cleared trees for crops and grazing, and we did it faster proportionate to area than most countries in Europe.
111 00:10:22.150 --> 00:10:34.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: from Tudor times, the Royal Navy used between 2,000 and 6,000 mature eggs per warship to build… to build warships. It's an astonishing figure. And that… that didn't help the tree cover. A lot of trees were cut down.
112 00:10:34.490 --> 00:10:53.420 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The Industrial Revolution used land for mines, railways, towns, farms, rapidly growing population. So by 1919, woodland cover was down to about 5% of the area, which is at its lowest point ever. And the Forestry Commission was funded in 1919 to try to support woodland regeneration.
113 00:10:54.430 --> 00:11:06.129 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next, please. So, currently, post-Brexit, there's been two plans. First of all, the England Trees Action Plan, which ran till 2024.
114 00:11:06.350 --> 00:11:09.579 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And it's now been replaced by the Environment Improvement Plan.
115 00:11:09.810 --> 00:11:10.770 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And…
116 00:11:10.900 --> 00:11:22.010 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: They, in that time, 21 to 24, they invested £100 million per annum to triple the rate of woodland creation from 10,000 hectares to 30,000 hectares.
117 00:11:22.210 --> 00:11:34.459 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: with a target of 16.5% tree cover by 2050, and the progress was very slow, and I'll discuss why that might be later on in this presentation.
118 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:52.979 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: There's also a timber and construction roadmap that the government published last year to try to reduce the embodied carbon in buildings. Creating buildings out of concrete is very, very intense, carbon intensive. And to stimulate woodland creation and active forest management in Britain.
119 00:11:52.980 --> 00:11:57.920 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: and to support economic growth. And I think there's a lot of potential in that plan.
120 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:00.020 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next one.
121 00:12:00.350 --> 00:12:16.389 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Right, this is… this is a really important slide, which I think is often misunderstood by parish councils, and our parish council in particular, making our neighborhood plan. We completely misunderstood this. So what this… what this chart shows is two things. In the orange.
122 00:12:16.500 --> 00:12:20.559 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: You've got the rate of sequestration per annum.
123 00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:32.330 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And sequestration means pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it into the trees. And so this… this is for… this chart shows a 200… 200-year…
124 00:12:32.550 --> 00:12:40.629 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Timeline along the horizontal axis, and it's for… it's what would happen if you planted unthinned oak
125 00:12:41.910 --> 00:12:50.099 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: woodland. So if you think of taking a square kilometre and planting lots of trees, this is what happens. So as the trees grow from little saplings.
126 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:58.169 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And they're saplings, they hardly sequester any carbon because they're too small. After about 30 years, you've got the maximum sequestration
127 00:12:58.390 --> 00:13:01.929 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And you have to look at this side for that, for the,
128 00:13:02.610 --> 00:13:06.570 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: for the, units. So that's, 40…
129 00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:20.520 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: 40 tons of CO2 equivalent per hectare per annum, and that's a maximum. After that, that's like a growth spurt in a teenager. After that, the growth gets slower, and as the tree matures, it… it…
130 00:13:20.520 --> 00:13:35.540 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: it ends up in an equilibrium, where it's not… it's not growing any bigger, and limbs are falling off, and it's getting damaged. So, after 200 years, a mature egg is not sequestrating any more… sorry, sequestering any more new carbon.
131 00:13:35.710 --> 00:13:49.839 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But what you have in the blue line, it shows the total store. So if you've got a… if you've got a stand of woodland, as it matures and you end up with veteran oak trees, you've got a very big store, which is 1,400
132 00:13:50.270 --> 00:13:59.479 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: CO2 equivalent per hectare, and that's a maximum, but it… but it's… it's not… it's not… it's stopped growing, that's… that's your maximum store.
133 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:03.889 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Is that clear? That's really, really important you understand that.
134 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:05.760 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah. Next slide.
135 00:14:06.150 --> 00:14:17.310 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So what that means, if you've got… if you've got a, say, a mature woodland, or sorry, if you're growing trees, you've got to make a choice. That's what these green lines are.
136 00:14:17.310 --> 00:14:31.610 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: You've got to say, either you harvest the oak or the trees when they're at their maximum sequestration, and that gives you a very small… a pretty small store of… if you did that, maintained that
137 00:14:31.610 --> 00:14:42.750 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: that regime, you would end up with quite a small store of carbon, this blue point here. You can't see my… sorry, you can't see my cursing again, that… where that blue line intersects the green.
138 00:14:43.900 --> 00:14:52.830 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But you've got a maximum harvest, so you're able to harvest 35… Tons a year per hectare.
139 00:14:53.450 --> 00:15:00.539 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Or you can go to this middle green line, where you have a larger store of carbon, but a smaller harvest.
140 00:15:00.540 --> 00:15:14.550 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Or you go… you let the trees mature, then you've got a very big store, static store of carbon, but you're only able to harvest a tiny amount every year, because there's hardly any growth left.
141 00:15:16.340 --> 00:15:18.539 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So that's a… that's an important consideration.
142 00:15:18.790 --> 00:15:24.369 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And… just to show that that's, you know, how that compares. You can see in this chart
143 00:15:24.450 --> 00:15:41.649 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: if you've got woodland, that dark green line, it does… it tails off. So after centuries to millennia, if you've got wood cover, you've got a static store, but there's no growth in the sequestration. That's true of salt marshes, it's true of grassland and other habitats.
144 00:15:41.650 --> 00:16:01.370 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The only thing it's not true of seems to be peatland, because if you… if you're making peat, you go on year after year after year putting down more peats, and the peat… the peat layer gets thicker and thicker. So that's… that's sort of the best thing for locking away carbon. But what… what all this means is that if you've got ancient woodlands.
145 00:16:02.040 --> 00:16:07.830 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: You must manage them and thin them out to allow new trees, new wood to grow.
146 00:16:08.530 --> 00:16:09.870 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
147 00:16:11.060 --> 00:16:20.980 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And that… the reason I've said all this in such detail is that in my parish as an example, we've got quite a lot of ancient woodland.
148 00:16:20.980 --> 00:16:37.149 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And the council thought, well, that's great, it's sequestering carbon every year, so we're okay. We've almost reached net zero, because this ancient woodland is sequestering all this new carbon. And that's not true, it's mature, it wasn't being managed, so actually it wasn't
149 00:16:37.270 --> 00:16:40.160 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It wasn't sequestering any new carbon at all.
150 00:16:40.380 --> 00:16:49.729 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And that's… that's damaging, because… I don't know if you know about albedo, but albedo is a percentage of sunlight that's reflected from the Earth's surface.
151 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:50.920 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And…
152 00:16:51.400 --> 00:17:02.999 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The forest and woodland is right down here, so it's… it's absorbing pretty well 90% of all the energy of the sun is being caught by the leaves and kept.
153 00:17:03.310 --> 00:17:08.880 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And if you compare that to crops, which is, you know, twice… it's,
154 00:17:08.930 --> 00:17:15.700 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It's reflecting twice as much sunlight back into the atmosphere, back into space, as forest.
155 00:17:15.700 --> 00:17:29.709 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So if you've got a mature, ancient woodland, it's trapping nearly all the carbon that's… sorry, it's trapping nearly all the heat from the sun, and it's not sequestering any new carbon. So in a way, it's the very worst thing in terms of global warming.
156 00:17:30.120 --> 00:17:34.380 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The message is, we must manage our forests.
157 00:17:34.560 --> 00:17:45.630 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So that they carry on sequestering new carbon, but then you've got to find a way to use the wood that you harvest. And you can use the wood, you know, either for fuel, but much the best thing is to use it for building.
158 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:48.290 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
159 00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:59.709 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, I'm now going to turn to thinking about timber for construction. 40% of man-made carbon comes from the construction industry, mostly from making concrete and steel.
160 00:17:59.820 --> 00:18:03.360 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And using timber is increasingly a much better alternative.
161 00:18:03.940 --> 00:18:22.300 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Because wooden construction reduces the embedded carbon by about 30% compared to concrete and steel, and also wooden construction creates a permanent carbon store. So if you… if you build all our 30 million houses out of timber, you've stored away that carbon, and as you, as you, you know, as would…
162 00:18:22.300 --> 00:18:26.510 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: dies, you put new wood in, you're replacing that store. So.
163 00:18:26.510 --> 00:18:37.589 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Potentially, we've got a huge opportunity to store all our timber, keep the woodlands sequestering new carbon, and using the timber to build houses.
164 00:18:38.070 --> 00:18:46.769 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The problem with this is that there's very little tradition for timber houses in the UK, so a lot of councils, you know, they say, well, it's not. They call it the,
165 00:18:47.550 --> 00:18:49.350 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: what do they call it? They've got a term.
166 00:18:49.550 --> 00:18:57.329 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It's not the sort of thing that we like to do, so it's hard to get proper wooden houses built.
167 00:18:57.330 --> 00:19:09.920 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And there's also a perception that wooden houses won't last properly, so people have an idea of a sort of log cabin, and a sort of not a permanent house, so people are much more inclined to want to build in bricks and concrete, as they've always done.
168 00:19:10.170 --> 00:19:12.800 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And I think we have to try to change that perception.
169 00:19:13.620 --> 00:19:26.980 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, timber for construction is increasingly engineered to make it stronger, dimensionally stable, fireproof, rock-proof, and water-resistant. So we… the new technology allows us to build houses
170 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:35.630 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: that are properly permanent, and Graham covered some of this last week. So the three… the three sort of things, the three ways of construction
171 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:46.399 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: are structural insulated panels, so that still uses, or could use concrete posts and buildings, but you then put in these panels, which are
172 00:19:46.610 --> 00:19:47.970 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It…
173 00:19:48.140 --> 00:20:07.560 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: a sheet of insulation and squashed between two, two panels of wood, and they're… they don't move, they're dimensionally stable, you can glue them together. So that's the first one. The second one is cross-laminated timber, so that's where you take timber, you make veneer panels, and then you change their orientation so that you end up with a
174 00:20:07.590 --> 00:20:15.409 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: A plank that's very dimensionally stable and doesn't… wood can't… sorry, water can't penetrate, because you… you use a glue that's waterproof.
175 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:24.959 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And then the third one is these glued laminated panels called glue lamps, which are like CLT, but engineered into shapes, so you can do anything with them.
176 00:20:25.300 --> 00:20:30.599 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And it's beautiful, and they're… I'll come on to the strength in a minute. So, next slide.
177 00:20:31.260 --> 00:20:47.159 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So here are some examples, and, I think Graham covered this one, the… I don't know how to pronounce that, but this building in Trondheim in Norway, which is 16 floors. It was the tallest wooden building, but I understand from Graham last week it's been overtaken.
178 00:20:47.620 --> 00:20:56.140 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It does have concrete in its foundations, and we'll come to how that could be replaced, but the rest of that 16-floor building is pure timber.
179 00:20:56.840 --> 00:21:07.949 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Wonderful. And it's past… it's passed all of our regulations, it's absolutely strong, it's much more beautiful, and it's storing all that… all that… all that carbon in its timbers.
180 00:21:08.690 --> 00:21:09.920 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
181 00:21:11.060 --> 00:21:29.710 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And I don't know if you've seen this building, the black and white office building in Shoreditch, which was, which was finished about 3 years ago, and here it is being constructed on the right-hand side, and you can see there's a… those girders are pure timber, and they… they've passed all the fire tests, and they're extremely strong.
182 00:21:30.550 --> 00:21:47.390 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So I think you've got to see that these buildings are also beautiful. They're more interesting, I think, than a lot of other buildings. There's also this… this scheme in Lewis, the Phoenix project, which is in the South Downs National Park. It's… it's start… construction has started
183 00:21:47.430 --> 00:22:00.409 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It will store 500,000 tons of CO2 equivalent when it's finished, and construction is now underway. But that took… planning permission for that development took a long, long time. It was very difficult to push through, but it's been done.
184 00:22:01.810 --> 00:22:16.840 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next… and here, I just… I just showed this photograph before, but I think this is a wonderful example of how you can… you can, you know, the architects can use their imaginations and make any shape or structure, and I think they're very, very beautiful. A lot of potential.
185 00:22:17.330 --> 00:22:18.849 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: You know where this one is, tristram?
186 00:22:18.860 --> 00:22:20.979 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I don't, actually. I don't.
187 00:22:21.370 --> 00:22:30.579 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But I think it's… I think it's a… looks like a church, a building of some sort. And then, using timber for ordinary housing is something we've got to come to.
188 00:22:30.780 --> 00:22:34.060 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: and accept, and I think at the moment, this is still a very
189 00:22:34.290 --> 00:22:44.030 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: niche, you know, most people who want to build a house will not want to build it out of timber. It's not yet the vernacular, that's the word I was looking for, it's not in our vernacular.
190 00:22:44.420 --> 00:22:47.080 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But we need to try to change that perception, I think.
191 00:22:48.030 --> 00:22:49.480 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
192 00:22:49.550 --> 00:23:08.760 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And then, the next thing I want to just cover is this thing called Superwood, which is… is still… it's not really commercial yet, but it's being… it's being investigated by two companies in particular, I found. One's called Invent Wood, which is in America, and Woodoo, which I think is not a good name, is a French company.
193 00:23:09.170 --> 00:23:19.489 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And the process they're looking at is saying, well, let's take the wood and actually change its structure so that it's stronger and dimensionally stable and rock-proof and all those things.
194 00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:35.179 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And roughly, the process is that you take… you take the normal wood, and you take the lignum out of it, which is the paste that holds the whole thing together, and you leave the cellular structure, which are these, you know, the long grains in the wood.
195 00:23:35.290 --> 00:23:44.259 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So you take out the lignum, delignification, and then you infiltrate the matrix that's left with a new substance.
196 00:23:44.490 --> 00:24:02.999 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Which could be anything you… it can be, you know, a lot of things, but if you put in a sort of epoxy-type resin thing, then you've got… you've got the structure of the wood and its grain, but you've got… you've changed the stuff that rots and absorbs water with something that's waterproof. And then the fourth part is that you then compress it.
197 00:24:03.080 --> 00:24:04.840 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And lock it all together.
198 00:24:06.180 --> 00:24:11.779 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: didn't ask me the details, but that's roughly how it works in one of those sites. And on the next slide.
199 00:24:12.100 --> 00:24:28.069 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: you can see that that… that's called… they call that superwood. So, if you look down the list of things, it's… it's far, far safe, better than traditional wood, steel, or concrete. It's 10… up to 10 times the strength to weight ratio of steel.
200 00:24:28.290 --> 00:24:42.630 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It resists moisture, termites, rot, and everything, so it's sort of everlasting, more so than traditional wood, steel, or concrete. It's six times lighter than steel, and it's got a carbon footprint that's 90% lower than steel.
201 00:24:42.840 --> 00:24:46.780 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So it's a… it's a sort of super material, potentially.
202 00:24:46.910 --> 00:24:57.770 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But, as I said, it's very expensive, and it's not, you know, not yet commonly used, but that's where this is heading. And once you… if you use that sort of material, you could make your foundations out of it as well.
203 00:24:59.570 --> 00:25:01.770 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: A little glimpse into the future.
204 00:25:02.200 --> 00:25:03.899 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide, please.
205 00:25:05.220 --> 00:25:13.619 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Okay, so I then… so when I was thinking about this, I said, well, I wonder how… whether it's possible, how many… how much of our timber we could grow
206 00:25:13.850 --> 00:25:23.040 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: In Britain, with our 16.5% target, and what… what would that represent? So I… I took the… UK's…
207 00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:26.879 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: A housing target of 30,000…
208 00:25:27.020 --> 00:25:36.560 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: New homes… sorry, 300,000 new homes per annum, which is… which is what the government says we need to produce to manage the population.
209 00:25:37.170 --> 00:25:47.760 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I then looked at the number of homes we've got in the UK, which is about 30 million, and if you take the average life of a house as 100 years, or the average life before you sort of, you know, rebuild it.
210 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:55.299 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Then that… that 30 million, at a rate of… at a lifetime of 100 years, will give you another $300,000.
211 00:25:56.040 --> 00:26:08.760 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: homes you'd need to build. So you've got 300,000 new homes, and then replacement homes of what's already there. So that would give you a total residential target of 600,000 homes per annum.
212 00:26:08.830 --> 00:26:17.539 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And commercial buildings are about half the volume of residential buildings, so you could take another 300,000
213 00:26:18.600 --> 00:26:28.149 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Equivalent homes for the commercial buildings, and that gives you a total target of 900,000 new houses, 3-bedroom equivalent houses per year.
214 00:26:28.330 --> 00:26:29.569 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
215 00:26:30.710 --> 00:26:43.799 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, if you then say that I took the cubic meters of timber that you need per 3-bedroom housing for the three types of houses, which is the timber frame, the sip.
216 00:26:43.900 --> 00:26:59.210 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: which is integrated with panel, but then either CLT or glulum, in other words, all… a total wooden building is this right-hand column, so let's use that. So that, in an average 3-bedroom house, you've got about 35 cubic meters of timber.
217 00:26:59.870 --> 00:27:00.710 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Okay.
218 00:27:00.990 --> 00:27:04.300 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And the extraction per… per…
219 00:27:05.260 --> 00:27:14.410 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Sorry, in cubic meters per hectare per annum in a mature softwood plantation, bear with me, is about 15.
220 00:27:15.040 --> 00:27:23.839 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, in other words, in a normal woodland that's being managed for timber, you only extract 15 cubic meters per hectare per arm.
221 00:27:24.180 --> 00:27:29.240 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, this… that then tells you how many hectares you need per house.
222 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:39.610 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So if… looking at this right-hand column of cross-laminated timber and glulam, you would need 2.33 hectares per house.
223 00:27:39.830 --> 00:27:51.719 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And that's 0.02 square kilometers per house, so for 600,000… then let's go down to the 900,000 houses, which is our total, you would need
224 00:27:51.930 --> 00:28:11.119 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: 20… 20,000 square kilometres of woodland, which is 8.4% of the area of the UK. So I hope you… I hope you're with me. But it means that in… it means that, sort of, in… in principle, there ought to be enough land if we… if we get close to our 16.5 target.
225 00:28:11.430 --> 00:28:17.050 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: To… to manage our entire… Requirement for structural timber.
226 00:28:17.430 --> 00:28:25.579 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: In the UK. And by the way, that… that also allows you… one benefit of… which I'll come on to in a second, is that you…
227 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.930 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think it's possible.
228 00:28:28.280 --> 00:28:42.300 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: to… if you think about managing an ancient woodland, or managing a hedgerow that you've put trees into, you know, all those can count, because with this new technology of CLTs and glulam, you don't need
229 00:28:42.450 --> 00:28:46.649 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: big, mature trees and straight planks. You can use pretty well any wood you like.
230 00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:55.810 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: softwood, hardwood, anything. So, when you see… when you see people clearing of the hedgerow and burning the wood, you know, we ought to be able to collect that.
231 00:28:56.450 --> 00:29:01.030 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: The objection to that is it wouldn't be commercially viable, but actually it will be, as I'll show you in a minute.
232 00:29:01.850 --> 00:29:20.820 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, next one. So, my conclusion for this is that woodland target of 6.5 covered by 2050 is potentially enough to fulfill the UK's complete timber requirement, especially if mature and ancient woodland is managed so that it can sequester new carbons, going back to the first point.
233 00:29:22.210 --> 00:29:28.300 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And I just made that point, Nate, that engineered wood can use pretty well any sort of timber. You no longer need large, straight planks.
234 00:29:29.260 --> 00:29:30.989 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide, please.
235 00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:44.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: I have a question for you on your math there, tristram. If you need 8% of the wood each year to beat your building target, then presumably you've got to grow that 8% every year, because you're taking it down.
236 00:29:44.850 --> 00:30:05.769 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's the point. You're not… you know, I'm not talking about clear filling. We'll come on to the ecosy services that carbon provides. What we're saying is that if you go back to my green lines, if you think about a new woodland, and you say, well, we're going to keep it at that level of maturity, that means every year you're harvesting some wood.
237 00:30:05.770 --> 00:30:10.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And leaving the rest, so that's… that's a stable repeatable state.
238 00:30:10.530 --> 00:30:12.250 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Spending, okay, thank you.
239 00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:28.090 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Okay, so the next thing is financial viability. The UK lags miles behind Europe, in particular Austria and Scandinavia in engineered wood production, and they've got… they've got, we've got smaller…
240 00:30:28.090 --> 00:30:39.909 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: forests, more mixed species, less established infrastructure. So if you're trying to compete with Scandinavia, you know, Finland, growing masses of square kilometers of the same trees, you know, you can't compete.
241 00:30:40.130 --> 00:30:57.299 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But DEFRA is now free, post the Common Agricultural Policy, to subsidize woodland, to pay for other ecosystem services. So the principle is that a tree provides all sorts of benefits to the country, besides being a source of timber.
242 00:30:57.300 --> 00:31:03.329 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So you've got things like soil stability, biodiversity, clean air, shade, flood prevention.
243 00:31:03.330 --> 00:31:10.979 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: water quality, access to nature, and all those things now can be subsidized by DEFRA
244 00:31:11.120 --> 00:31:18.820 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And if you get that… if you tune that thing right, you… you ought to be able to make your… the timber that you do extract
245 00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:21.330 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: commercially viable.
246 00:31:21.940 --> 00:31:23.179 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Does that make sense?
247 00:31:23.720 --> 00:31:24.380 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Yep.
248 00:31:25.180 --> 00:31:40.860 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So subsidies can be designed to make timber for construction financially viable, and extraction and engineering. Oh, and as a result of that, by the way, extraction and engineering is now making good progress. So, although we started from a very low base, because we lost pretty well all our timber processing,
249 00:31:41.490 --> 00:31:43.440 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: yards.
250 00:31:43.560 --> 00:31:52.799 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: engineered wood is now growing to about 15% per annum since 2015. So although that's from a low brace, that's good, you know, that's good progress.
251 00:31:56.350 --> 00:32:02.450 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Okay, so DEFRA's got a thing called the England Woodland Creation Officer… Offer… sorry, offer.
252 00:32:02.730 --> 00:32:11.419 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yuko, and that allows these payments to be stacked for the same piece of woodland. So if you're a… if you're a parish or a district with a bit of woodland.
253 00:32:11.420 --> 00:32:23.000 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: you can apply now for things like carbon credits, biodiversity units, flood mitigation, access to nature. And in the next slide, I'm going to show you a few of those things to show you that it's real.
254 00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:28.850 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, for the next slide, please. So, if you go to this forestgis.com.
255 00:32:29.260 --> 00:32:42.320 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: you've got, you can see on the right-hand side here, you've got data sets for this England Woodland Creation Officer for flood offer, for flood risk management, water quality, keeping rivers cool, riparian buffers.
256 00:32:42.620 --> 00:32:54.560 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Oh, I don't know what they will mean. So, so this… you can find out what, potentially, you will be paid by DEFRA for managing your trees in that way. And there are a few examples in the next slides.
257 00:32:55.960 --> 00:33:01.059 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So here's… this is, this is for Winchfield. This is flood risk and water quality.
258 00:33:02.110 --> 00:33:12.730 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I'm not going to discuss these at all, but you can see there's a map, and these colors say we want to plant trees here for that purpose, for managing flood and water quality. Next one.
259 00:33:13.570 --> 00:33:25.260 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So this is for… this is for nature recovery, so this is take… I think… I think what this means is you're being encouraged to plant trees on these established, green areas, so you can't see my cursor.
260 00:33:25.260 --> 00:33:39.000 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: makes it hard. But the way where you get that darker green, that's saying, we want to encourage planting there to increase those woodland stands and make access for nature. So there's a payment for that, potentially.
261 00:33:39.450 --> 00:33:40.580 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next one.
262 00:33:40.900 --> 00:33:42.630 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: riparian buffers.
263 00:33:43.320 --> 00:33:44.440 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next one.
264 00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:53.329 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: social, so access to nature. So, if you plant trees here, we'll give you, you know, a few pence per tree, or whatever it is, to improve social.
265 00:33:53.680 --> 00:33:54.750 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Access.
266 00:33:54.940 --> 00:33:58.320 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: SSI protection from ammonia.
267 00:33:58.840 --> 00:34:00.290 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next.
268 00:34:01.520 --> 00:34:10.150 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: That's it. So… so that's… I hope that's clear, that what… the strategy, the deference strategy is to say we want to encourage
269 00:34:10.150 --> 00:34:11.780 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Woodland for timber.
270 00:34:11.780 --> 00:34:30.420 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: It's not… but we also want to encourage leaving trees so that they do other good things, as we've been discussing, you know, creating… creating clean air, stopping… making soil stability, stopping things getting into the watercourses. So they've got all these other uses, which should be valued, and we should be able to pay subsidies for them.
271 00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:39.129 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, finally, in this presentation, I want to just turn to the parish-level opportunities, because I think there are some which haven't been recognized.
272 00:34:39.480 --> 00:34:57.330 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide. So, these UCO grants are for a minimum area of 2 hectares, normally, so they're not available to small landowners and individual gardens. So, I had a go at DEFRA a couple of years ago, and we got them to come to visit HART.
273 00:34:58.250 --> 00:35:01.500 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And we said to them, you know, couldn't we…
274 00:35:02.170 --> 00:35:08.130 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: couldn't we group together small landowners and say, well, you know, in Winchfield Parish, we've got so many
275 00:35:08.130 --> 00:35:28.869 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: landowners who are prepared to put trees where you want them and gain these benefits of the UK subsidies. And to my surprise, DEFRA said, yes, we can. We will work with groups of non… and also non-contiguous, so you don't have to have a continuous stand of trees. They'll say, you know, you bunch them together, potentially.
276 00:35:29.310 --> 00:35:41.190 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But you have to do… the problem was, you have to do it through a legal entity, such as a community interest company or a co-op, and that's… it's quite a lot of work. It's not… it's not an easy thing to do.
277 00:35:41.830 --> 00:35:54.530 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, the question in this presentation was, is this an opportunity for Odium? And I was making a presentation to the Odium U3A about it, and I was just explaining how it would work. So, the next slide…
278 00:35:55.230 --> 00:36:04.020 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: What you have to do, first of all, is to identify woodland opportunity areas, which… which, in Parish Online, we've got a dataset that does that.
279 00:36:04.440 --> 00:36:14.560 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Exclude areas that are earmarked for other purposes, say, for development of housing in the neighborhood or the local plan. Then identify who the landowners are.
280 00:36:14.860 --> 00:36:20.800 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: group the landowners under a CIC or a co-op, and then apply for woodland grants.
281 00:36:21.260 --> 00:36:31.379 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And also, it's important that if we're going to do this, we should also make sure that in our neighbourhood plans and local plans, we encourage the building of housing in timber.
282 00:36:34.150 --> 00:36:40.569 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So, this was just showing Odium. So, this is the dataset that you probably recognize, which is the Friends of the Earth.
283 00:36:40.730 --> 00:36:48.690 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: woodland opportunities. So what… what the Friends of the Earth did is they looked at the whole country and said, well, where can we find… where would we want to encourage woodland?
284 00:36:48.800 --> 00:37:06.479 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: which is not higher quality, agricultural land, isn't a… it's not another habitat which we want to protect that's of higher value. And so that's… so these polygons show where woodlands opportunities should be. Next slide.
285 00:37:07.520 --> 00:37:23.779 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And then we overlaid on that the current tree cover, which is also Friends of the Earth dataset, and you can then sort of start to see the, oh, so that opportunity here at the top is basically thickening an already existing stand of trees.
286 00:37:23.980 --> 00:37:27.100 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So you can sort of see it makes sense. Next one.
287 00:37:28.370 --> 00:37:39.850 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And then… so then we overlaid the land registry, polygons on that, so that we could say, well, there's an opportunity here, let's now talk to the landowner and see if he wants to join the club.
288 00:37:40.650 --> 00:37:42.199 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Next slide.
289 00:37:43.260 --> 00:37:44.399 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Oh, is that it?
290 00:37:44.810 --> 00:37:45.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Yep.
291 00:37:46.930 --> 00:37:47.979 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I'm very sorry.
292 00:37:47.980 --> 00:37:48.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: more.
293 00:37:49.020 --> 00:38:00.450 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: That's fine, that's fine. I thought, I thought I'd put another couple. But I hope… I hope that's clear, that I think there is an opportunity for, at parish level, to say, well, let's see if we can identify
294 00:38:00.980 --> 00:38:10.320 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Where we want to put trees to, you know, thicken a stand, or to make a hedgerow more viable, to make a corridor.
295 00:38:10.540 --> 00:38:13.410 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: work out what grants we can get from UCO,
296 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:27.529 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: and then talk to local… I think for urban, you know, for urban development of, of, business and opportunities, business opportunities, you could have a local extractor who would process the wood.
297 00:38:27.530 --> 00:38:43.400 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: take it to your local sawmill, or a local engineering company, turn your timber into engineered products, and build houses from timber. And in a sort of perfect world, all that would work, and it could be quite a big industry for the country.
298 00:38:44.610 --> 00:38:45.590 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Thank you.
299 00:38:45.590 --> 00:39:04.159 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: That's utterly fascinating, Tristan. Thank you so much. I'm already sort of planning how to approach our parish council and say, come on guys, let's get with this, because it's obviously beneficial in all sorts of ways. So, fantastic, thank you very much. Let me go on to the questioning, and Stuart, would you start the ball rolling, please?
300 00:39:04.160 --> 00:39:11.330 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And I'd just like to say thank you for a very interesting, presentation.
301 00:39:11.670 --> 00:39:16.499 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I think I'm thinking about things in a slightly different manner now, so thank you for that.
302 00:39:16.970 --> 00:39:19.540 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I would take your task on,
303 00:39:19.850 --> 00:39:22.809 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Wooden houses only lasting a few hundred years.
304 00:39:23.290 --> 00:39:29.490 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I think this house, they think, was built in the 13th or 14th century.
305 00:39:29.490 --> 00:39:30.020 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: You know.
306 00:39:30.020 --> 00:39:31.810 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Clearly still going.
307 00:39:32.090 --> 00:39:34.849 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I'm just saying it's a percentage, it's a very strong perception.
308 00:39:36.080 --> 00:39:41.700 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yeah, but I guess construction, when this place was built, it would be the standard construction.
309 00:39:41.700 --> 00:39:42.100 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah.
310 00:39:42.100 --> 00:39:42.990 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: material.
311 00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:56.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Although, of course, the other thing is, it's not… it is true that very old buildings have very ancient timber frames, but I think that the opportunity for these glulam houses uses a lot more timber.
312 00:39:56.560 --> 00:40:02.850 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Dude, it's all timber, whereas your house is probably a lot of bricks and other things as well.
313 00:40:03.330 --> 00:40:08.530 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: It sits on, I think there's about 3 bricks plinth around it.
314 00:40:08.530 --> 00:40:09.070 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: them.
315 00:40:09.070 --> 00:40:11.550 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And the rest of it is…
316 00:40:11.790 --> 00:40:14.710 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Straight timber and lath and plaster.
317 00:40:15.820 --> 00:40:19.370 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: But of course, you can get skyscrapers now, which you couldn't do in the 13th century.
318 00:40:19.370 --> 00:40:19.730 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: the E.
319 00:40:19.730 --> 00:40:20.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Usually.
320 00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:22.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: People less reluctant.
321 00:40:22.240 --> 00:40:24.600 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I take your point, Stuart, that's absolutely right.
322 00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:30.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Thank you. Thank you anyway, Stuart. Jane, would you like to chat, please? And you're muted at the moment.
323 00:40:31.020 --> 00:40:33.060 Jane Carr: I'm muted, can you hear me now?
324 00:40:33.060 --> 00:40:34.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Absolutely, yeah.
325 00:40:34.520 --> 00:40:38.749 Jane Carr: I've got two questions, if I could.
326 00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:52.530 Jane Carr: First, with the delignification, when you're stuffing the wood with… when you've taken the ligninine out, and you're stuffing the wood, with… and I can't remember what it was, how,
327 00:40:53.430 --> 00:41:10.740 Jane Carr: How… because presumably at some point, these pieces of wood are going to have to be got rid of, and what are we stuffing in there, that would be, you know, no good for the environment, or… or that sort of thing?
328 00:41:11.190 --> 00:41:13.250 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah, that's a good question. I did…
329 00:41:13.460 --> 00:41:21.490 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think there's a lot of experiments of how you fill these things in, and if you look at those two websites that I put in the presentation, they've got some details about them.
330 00:41:21.600 --> 00:41:31.199 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And so, it's a common thing that people say, well, that could be very poisonous, you know, if it's epoxy resin, how do we get rid of it, and all that stuff. I've… I frankly have no idea.
331 00:41:31.390 --> 00:41:32.090 Jane Carr: Okay.
332 00:41:33.050 --> 00:41:40.530 Jane Carr: Okay, second question was, when you talked about the 8.4% of woodland.
333 00:41:41.170 --> 00:41:48.840 Jane Carr: That would be, presumably, this is what we would be, cutting and replanting.
334 00:41:49.010 --> 00:41:58.030 Jane Carr: And there's still, within the 16.5% that we wanted to cover England with,
335 00:41:58.850 --> 00:42:16.910 Jane Carr: what percentage of land for growing our own food gets included in there? Because that's another vital thing that we're going to have to do. And if we're building all these houses and having all this woodland, are we going to have anything left to grow our own food on?
336 00:42:17.590 --> 00:42:23.179 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Well, yes, I think plenty, because if you've got 16.5, that leaves the rest of the land
337 00:42:23.380 --> 00:42:35.949 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: You know, as for agricultural land. So we're only increasing, we're currently at 10% in England, 13%, so we're only talking about going from 13% in the UK up to 16.5, so it's quite a small difference.
338 00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:37.199 Jane Carr: And I think for.
339 00:42:37.200 --> 00:42:44.970 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think for nature, I think… I think it's well… I think it's accepted that you should have more trees. Trees are wonderful.
340 00:42:45.660 --> 00:43:03.980 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: you know, for biodiversity and soil stability and air quality, they do all sorts of wonderful things, and I think it's accepted we've got too little, we're way behind. So what I… my argument is that, of course, of course that means you can't grow, you know, wheat if you've got trees, but it's getting that balance right.
341 00:43:04.130 --> 00:43:08.870 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But my argument is that within that 16.5%, if we get there.
342 00:43:08.870 --> 00:43:32.180 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: There's plenty… you know, we could use all that timber and manage… and not… not clear-filling, you know, not… it would be selective, so you'd maintain, you know, mixed… a mixed… whatever you wanted for your birds and butterflies and, you know, flora and fauna and all those other ecosystem services, but you would also have a section of it where you'd say, we're going to manage this woodland and thin it out, and use that timber for construction.
343 00:43:32.650 --> 00:43:35.319 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So it's a balance of all those different things.
344 00:43:35.610 --> 00:43:36.100 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think.
345 00:43:36.100 --> 00:43:55.149 Jane Carr: It's always been my feeling that instead of having this system that we've got now, where it's a nationwide forestry England who comes in and clear fells and what have you, that if we actually had… there are so many people in this country who would love
346 00:43:55.230 --> 00:44:06.459 Jane Carr: to live their life in woodland and to manage woodland. And if we had individual little blocks of woodland that were managed by somebody that loved that woodland and did it
347 00:44:06.610 --> 00:44:13.460 Jane Carr: With… I'm gonna use silly words here, but with compassion and thought.
348 00:44:13.460 --> 00:44:15.000 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah, I agree, I completely agree.
349 00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:16.269 Jane Carr: all out, then…
350 00:44:16.270 --> 00:44:37.039 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I completely agree. And when we talked… when I… when we had deferection, another interesting thing was they walked around our parish, and they looked at the little stands, and they said, yeah, this would be really good. And there were also grants for making tracks, so that when you extract the timber, you could, you know, the timber extractors don't get bogged down. So there are grants for everything, potentially.
351 00:44:37.040 --> 00:44:37.830 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So I think…
352 00:44:37.830 --> 00:44:38.919 Jane Carr: Pull it out.
353 00:44:39.060 --> 00:44:41.140 Jane Carr: Yeah, yeah.
354 00:44:41.140 --> 00:44:44.540 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: There were lots of, you know, they were very enthusiastic, and they were saying.
355 00:44:45.120 --> 00:44:52.429 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: this should be done, and one of the reasons why that… I forgot to say this, one of the reasons why the England Trees Plan didn't work
356 00:44:52.580 --> 00:45:04.700 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: very well, was that the only people who were applying for the grants were the current owners of industrial forest. So what… you're missing out, the whole, what you've just said, the whole idea about localism was just missed.
357 00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:11.280 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: And that's why they said, you know, potentially, if you can get yourselves into a group, we'll deal with you at parish level.
358 00:45:11.830 --> 00:45:12.500 Jane Carr: I don't want to…
359 00:45:12.500 --> 00:45:13.350 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: encouraging.
360 00:45:13.520 --> 00:45:24.909 Jane Carr: And yesterday evening, I went to, the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, has a wonderful lady called Megan, and I can't remember her surname, but she talked to us about the seven
361 00:45:25.590 --> 00:45:29.990 Jane Carr: what is it called? The 7 Treescaping
362 00:45:30.140 --> 00:45:41.019 Jane Carr: and what they're doing. This is not necessarily timber for construction, but it's… they're putting in orchards and, trying to, because obviously the…
363 00:45:41.160 --> 00:45:42.990 Jane Carr: Trees, fruit trees.
364 00:45:43.380 --> 00:45:57.119 Jane Carr: are very good, too, and they… and we can eat what they produce, rather than build with what they produce. So, I've just… I've just had… so this is two really hopeful things that I've listened to in the last 24 hours, and it's wonderful.
365 00:45:57.120 --> 00:45:57.660 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Good.
366 00:45:57.660 --> 00:45:58.629 Jane Carr: Thank you. Good, thank you.
367 00:45:58.630 --> 00:45:59.220 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Thank you.
368 00:45:59.990 --> 00:46:00.510 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Mmm.
369 00:46:00.510 --> 00:46:02.250 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Go to David, please.
370 00:46:05.380 --> 00:46:20.670 David Morgan-Jones: Tristram, I know you're going about concrete. There's some quite innovative stuff going on at the moment. The… I think it's the Americans have actually started mixing carbon black into concrete.
371 00:46:20.900 --> 00:46:23.739 David Morgan-Jones: And it turns them into massive batteries.
372 00:46:24.340 --> 00:46:25.030 David Morgan-Jones: Shit.
373 00:46:25.030 --> 00:46:26.170 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Chris, I heard about that?
374 00:46:26.170 --> 00:46:27.020 David Morgan-Jones: Yeah, so…
375 00:46:27.020 --> 00:46:27.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: I see you doing that?
376 00:46:27.990 --> 00:46:31.550 David Morgan-Jones: Yeah, 30 to 40 cubic meters of concrete.
377 00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:34.940 David Morgan-Jones: Is enough to power an entire house.
378 00:46:35.260 --> 00:46:51.370 David Morgan-Jones: I'm not sure how much is actually put into a base build of a normal house, but, you know, that would be, quite an interesting, sort of, intermesh between wood and, carbon capture and power storage.
379 00:46:52.560 --> 00:47:09.879 David Morgan-Jones: The other thing is a more practical one, Tristram. Have you actually got that uploaded somewhere, all that sort of amazing stuff you've been putting, on the Great Collaboration website? I mean, the reason why I'm saying that is we've… we've started doing some work here in uShot about, ancient woodland.
380 00:47:10.230 --> 00:47:17.110 David Morgan-Jones: But I was completely unaware of… A, the grants.
381 00:47:17.390 --> 00:47:23.200 David Morgan-Jones: and B, the need to actually harvest some of this very mature
382 00:47:24.030 --> 00:47:31.779 David Morgan-Jones: Or wood. Because actually we've got a lot of very mature trees, which actually could go…
383 00:47:31.950 --> 00:47:35.630 David Morgan-Jones: And allow us to actually plant younger trees.
384 00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:41.600 David Morgan-Jones: Whilst at the same time stripping out the parasitic rhododendron that's bloody invading everywhere.
385 00:47:43.410 --> 00:47:54.999 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Well, yes, it will be in the… well, it'll now be in, Graham's reg… this presentation will be in Graham's store, so yes, it will be in the Collaboration from now, I guess.
386 00:47:55.280 --> 00:47:55.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Alright.
387 00:47:56.900 --> 00:48:02.949 David Morgan-Jones: I was rather hoping for an idiot's guide, a nice little handout I could take to the parish council and go.
388 00:48:03.080 --> 00:48:06.179 David Morgan-Jones: Hey guys, this is what we could do.
389 00:48:07.420 --> 00:48:13.250 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But if you want me to come talk to them, I'll do that. But you… actually, you should ring. I'll give you the contact of the…
390 00:48:13.820 --> 00:48:21.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: DEFRA, can't remember what they call them, Woodland Creation Office, so they got… they've got a very nice chap called Gil Martin came and talked to us in the heart.
391 00:48:22.090 --> 00:48:30.590 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Which was open, by the way, to all the parachutes, you probably missed it, but they were really encouraging, and they're very enthusiastic, so if you ring them up and say, would they come and
392 00:48:30.730 --> 00:48:31.830 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: advise you.
393 00:48:31.830 --> 00:48:39.070 David Morgan-Jones: I'll come back to you on that, Trisha. I mean, our parish is relatively unique. I mean, I think we're between 35%, maybe 40% tree.
394 00:48:39.490 --> 00:48:40.250 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Broad.
395 00:48:41.190 --> 00:48:47.790 David Morgan-Jones: So, you know, we could do quite a lot to actually make something useful out of that. Okay, thank you very much.
396 00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:51.000 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Good morning, Andrew, or afternoon, Andrew.
397 00:48:51.210 --> 00:48:51.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Yeah.
398 00:48:51.860 --> 00:49:08.719 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Sorry I was late, everybody. I was… I was… I was busy… I've got a delivery of logs this afternoon, and I was busy outside clearing the drive. I live on the edge of the Somerset levels, and all our houses have got their feet in very damp clay.
399 00:49:09.340 --> 00:49:22.269 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: The new houses are being built with timber frames, all of them, and some of them with more than just the framework, and I'm just wondering what happens to,
400 00:49:22.370 --> 00:49:31.580 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: timber houses, if they're rather wet at the bottom. Has that issue… has that problem been solved?
401 00:49:31.580 --> 00:49:47.010 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think… well, I think it has, that's the point about the engineered timbers. So the CLTs, I mean, I don't have the specs, but they are very, you know, they don't absorb water, they're very dimensionally stable, they don't swell, and that's because when they make those,
402 00:49:47.830 --> 00:50:05.679 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: the sheets of veneer that they then cross-ply. They glue them with a glue that makes the water not able to penetrate. And that's back to Jane's question, what's that doing to the environment? I'm not an expert on that. Yeah. But I think you'll find the timbers now are guaranteed for, I don't know how long.
403 00:50:05.680 --> 00:50:22.769 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I use… I've been doing some window work in my house using a thing called a coya, which is another treated wood, and it's guaranteed for 50 years that it… and I've had it… I've had some… it's… it's wonderful stuff, and it's… it's basically pine that they then, under pressure, they… they…
404 00:50:22.940 --> 00:50:32.740 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: inject it deep into the timber, something that makes it… changes the chemistry of the wood and makes it… makes it water-stable. And I had… I had a plank of…
405 00:50:32.740 --> 00:50:53.639 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I, for an experiment, I put a small plank of untreated pine, and then a bit of this aquoia, the same shape, and left it outside on a garden roof for 20 years, and the pine disappeared, and the Akoya was absolutely the same. It hadn't… it was a completely square plank. It was the same color, nothing had penetrated it. It really works.
406 00:50:54.800 --> 00:51:04.220 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Yeah, I'm asking because, you know, they tell you when you go and buy wood that's supposedly been treated, they say 20 years. You know, well, 20 years is…
407 00:51:04.220 --> 00:51:04.970 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Well, the quiet…
408 00:51:04.970 --> 00:51:09.379 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: I live in a house which is 300 years old. Yeah.
409 00:51:09.600 --> 00:51:20.549 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But I… I mean, they don't know how long it will last, but I'm very… I'm very confident my Okoya works, and it's… it's… you know, I've had a… a room built out of it, and it hasn't moved at all.
410 00:51:21.150 --> 00:51:46.099 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Andrew, maybe there's scope for a combination there. If you build your ground floor, your foundations, and your basement from concrete, which has got this carbon black in it, that one wall of your basement is enough to store the electricity you need to run your normal house out of hours, and then the rest of it can be your timber frame, so you get around that business of the rot, or potential rot, or in fact, what happens after
411 00:51:46.100 --> 00:51:55.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: 50 years, you know. We all have this sort of managed expiry date now. We're all used to things that start breaking as soon as the warranty has ended.
412 00:51:55.690 --> 00:51:56.520 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Shit.
413 00:51:56.550 --> 00:52:08.719 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: we may need to do a combination. Let me move to the chat. There's a question there from Frank, which says, is there an opportunity for mixed species woodland to create building timber?
414 00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:27.220 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yes, absolutely, Frank. That's… and mixed species is really good, because if you… if you want to optimize your tree planting to, you know, if you… if you're on the edge of a river, and you're trying to stop runoff, and you want stability, and you want to grow nuts and fruit, you know, all those things have… have, a place. So… so…
415 00:52:27.220 --> 00:52:31.980 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: what DEFRA is aiming for is mixed woodland, which is best for the environment.
416 00:52:31.980 --> 00:52:47.849 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But then all that timber can be used in different products, because you don't… you don't need any… you know, you don't need the wood itself to have any characteristics of straight planks, or good grain, or whatever it is, because it all gets veneered and bodged up into these products. So they can… you can basically use any wood you like.
417 00:52:48.580 --> 00:52:57.179 Frank Hemming: That's very encouraging, and I thought that would be the answer, but I imagine in the recent past, it's been
418 00:52:57.750 --> 00:53:09.169 Frank Hemming: the same species, and… and I've just been looking at some woodland. I'm in Herefordshire, and we've just had a look at our common in the
419 00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:15.090 Frank Hemming: There's a certain amount of woodland that the parish is responsible for. And…
420 00:53:15.220 --> 00:53:31.120 Frank Hemming: The, tree… our local tree expert was taking me around, and, we have a certain amount of ash dye back, but it is not…
421 00:53:31.570 --> 00:53:44.099 Frank Hemming: It's not desperate, and he was saying that in Wales, where you've got a lot of ash woodland, that is where it's serious. And, I imagine that ash was planted
422 00:53:44.540 --> 00:54:04.690 Frank Hemming: Specifically, as in a sort of plantation manner, and that's where you get the problems that we've got, residual old bits of woodland, and the ash is self-seeded, and so on. So that's better off. That's one thing. The other thing, I'm interested in the food issue, because I'm quite interested in
423 00:54:04.690 --> 00:54:06.110 Frank Hemming: spreading…
424 00:54:06.160 --> 00:54:22.150 Frank Hemming: good sweet chestnut trees around, and when I say good, my interest is they've got nuts on that you can use, and there's been an awful lot of sweet chestnut planted in our parish in the past. It's used for hot poles.
425 00:54:22.280 --> 00:54:26.609 Frank Hemming: So, it was coppiced, now it's overgrown, but the nuts are not…
426 00:54:26.740 --> 00:54:38.220 Frank Hemming: nothing worth having. So, I think there's a lot of work to be done, because with changing in climate, these… we can grow decent sweet chestnuts.
427 00:54:38.390 --> 00:54:40.480 Frank Hemming: They've got to have a certain amount of…
428 00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:49.490 Frank Hemming: space around them. I think if they're enclosed in woodland, or they get too shaded, they're not going to work very well from that point of view. But then again.
429 00:54:49.810 --> 00:54:57.829 Frank Hemming: There's walnuts as well, and so on, so that… just partly taking out the question of where's the food going to come from?
430 00:54:59.320 --> 00:54:59.959 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: It was really…
431 00:54:59.960 --> 00:55:00.340 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Not sure.
432 00:55:00.340 --> 00:55:14.970 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: report the other day that said that the Forestry Commission, which was responsible for all those dense pine forests that cover all swathes of our landscape, are now changing tack, and they're very much more into mixed woodland.
433 00:55:14.970 --> 00:55:15.570 Frank Hemming: good news.
434 00:55:15.570 --> 00:55:24.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Yeah, it's all the reasons that Tristram has mentioned, that they've got over that initial requirement to get the fastest growing wood that they could, and now they're changing that.
435 00:55:24.210 --> 00:55:30.160 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: But the other thing that interests me, though, is that the, we talk about maximizing our food production, arable…
436 00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:48.029 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: farming, but that seems to be massively damaging to the soil and to the watercourses. And so then you think, well, if you can't do that, what are we going to do? So I think where our food comes from is a really interesting question, but I think you've got to… I think you need more trees
437 00:55:48.030 --> 00:55:57.169 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Try to produce some food from the trees, but then also do other things, have multiple layers of farms in a, you know, in a… what do you call it? Hydroponic, like.
438 00:55:57.660 --> 00:56:04.500 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: So you don't have a monoculture into the soil, you've got… you've got a… the hydroponic.
439 00:56:04.970 --> 00:56:19.829 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: fields, basically, stacked, I don't know what you do. Or you ferment, you know, you ferment things and make food that way, so there's… I think the whole question of where our food comes from and how that will change over the next 50 years is very interesting.
440 00:56:20.650 --> 00:56:29.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: I agree. We do have… there's a point, a question from Jane in the chat, which is, please, could you spell La Coya properly?
441 00:56:29.300 --> 00:56:34.140 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I think it's A-C-C-O-Y-A. Somebody look it up.
442 00:56:34.290 --> 00:56:37.000 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: I really recommend it, it's brilliant.
443 00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:39.790 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: And Jamie, that's… That sounds right to me.
444 00:56:40.700 --> 00:56:43.570 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Do you have a separate question, Jay? No, that was it. Right.
445 00:56:44.090 --> 00:56:45.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: You're on mute again.
446 00:56:46.790 --> 00:56:56.349 Jane Carr: No, I just wanted to say that, this question of where our food's coming from, I think, firstly, I think we have to,
447 00:56:56.890 --> 00:57:00.439 Jane Carr: Change our ideas to a certain extent about what we eat.
448 00:57:00.570 --> 00:57:05.419 Jane Carr: And also, it's… it's already coming with…
449 00:57:05.630 --> 00:57:23.099 Jane Carr: permaculture and forest gardens, and things like that, where… to try and step away from the monocultures and growing our food. Like you're talking about the mixed forests, mixed foods. My garden has become
450 00:57:23.140 --> 00:57:31.860 Jane Carr: you know, mixed, I jumble all my vegetables in together, and they all kind of look after each other. I think, I think we… it's…
451 00:57:31.930 --> 00:57:33.940 Jane Carr: It… things are changing.
452 00:57:34.830 --> 00:57:36.199 Jane Carr: Slow but sure.
453 00:57:36.200 --> 00:58:00.340 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: I think they are, they're changing hugely, and it's actually very exciting to be part of it. And your idea of localism, I think that the transition towns and everything of people trying to get things sorted out the way they want to live in a local community, rather than in a nationalized government, is picking up speed. I think it's going to be an exciting time. The technology is getting fantastic as well.
454 00:58:00.930 --> 00:58:03.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Let's move on to Gary, please.
455 00:58:03.630 --> 00:58:16.360 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Hi, yeah, I just had a question. Does anybody know where they go for advice on what trees we should be planting because of the conditions we're going to be facing going forward with climate change?
456 00:58:16.480 --> 00:58:24.940 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Planted a lot of trees last year, and they, of course, they absolutely struggled with the drought and the ridiculously high weathers we… high temperatures we had.
457 00:58:25.200 --> 00:58:32.099 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And I've always found it quite difficult going anywhere online to say, well, you know, what tree should we be planting now for the.
458 00:58:32.100 --> 00:58:33.780 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Defra, I think Defra…
459 00:58:33.980 --> 00:58:34.380 Frank Hemming: Definitely.
460 00:58:34.380 --> 00:58:40.569 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: does have a website. I'll try to find its name, but they've got a map.
461 00:58:40.730 --> 00:58:56.519 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Which does specifically that. It says, if you look 50 years ahead, this is what we recommend. And I think it… I think it's also based on the soil and the water quality, so it's… it's a… it's a sort of future look at what you should be planting, depending on where you are in the country.
462 00:58:56.740 --> 00:58:57.610 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, that's for sure.
463 00:58:57.610 --> 00:58:59.350 Frank Hemming: Can I make a plea for…
464 00:58:59.350 --> 00:59:00.819 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Stream doesn't collapse as well.
465 00:59:01.660 --> 00:59:03.490 Frank Hemming: Just another thing.
466 00:59:03.490 --> 00:59:11.839 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Because Spanish are kind of, you know, sticking the spokes there, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, don't worry, this is the climate we're going to have in 50 years' time. Oh, no, we're going to have a completely different one.
467 00:59:11.840 --> 00:59:15.489 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Well, at least they're trying, so that might help you.
468 00:59:16.200 --> 00:59:16.850 Frank Hemming: Assuming…
469 00:59:16.850 --> 00:59:17.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Definitely, yeah.
470 00:59:17.960 --> 00:59:36.870 Frank Hemming: Can I just say, assuming hot summers at the moment, and dry conditions, walnuts and sweet chestnuts, and also, actually, apple trees, mainly originate from Central Asia, and that's the climate
471 00:59:36.920 --> 00:59:44.220 Frank Hemming: where you would not get… you'd get a lot of cold in the winter, but the summer would be really hot. So,
472 00:59:44.280 --> 00:59:58.649 Frank Hemming: there's a lot… a deep… also, they'll get a deep root, whereas trees that are used to a more Atlantic climate will have a much shallower root. So, yeah, go for the Central Asia ones.
473 01:00:01.020 --> 01:00:18.479 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Blended. Well, that's really been a very fascinating subject, and if nobody has any more questions, I have one question for everybody, please, which is, could each person put into the chat one topic on which they would like to see a presentation in the future?
474 01:00:18.610 --> 01:00:37.879 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Because I've not run out of ideas, but I think it's time to incorporate ideas from everybody. So I would love a contribution, please, just one per person, of what you would really like to see as a future Banter session. And then that will give me stuff to pursue and find people to talk to us about it.
475 01:00:38.130 --> 01:00:42.450 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: My brain doesn't work fast enough for that, Graham. I'll email you.
476 01:00:42.450 --> 01:00:42.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: admit you.
477 01:00:42.920 --> 01:00:43.370 Frank Hemming: Pretty good.
478 01:00:43.370 --> 01:00:47.159 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: This'll work fine, Andrew. Why don't you put the cat onto it?
479 01:00:49.450 --> 01:00:50.599 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Sorry about the cat.
480 01:00:50.600 --> 01:00:53.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: No, no, no, no, I'm looking to see what he's gonna type.
481 01:00:54.840 --> 01:01:00.580 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: He's just in the process of knocking my pen off the table, actually.
482 01:01:03.040 --> 01:01:08.380 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Okay, so, we're still waiting for the spelling of acquire.
483 01:01:08.590 --> 01:01:09.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: To come up as a chair.
484 01:01:09.720 --> 01:01:12.449 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: That's correct. It was a double C.
485 01:01:12.450 --> 01:01:13.230 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Yeah, he's understood.
486 01:01:13.230 --> 01:01:21.030 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: note, by the way, put a little note in the chat, about 10 top trees for urban areas.
487 01:01:21.030 --> 01:01:22.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Yeah, I saw that.
488 01:01:22.100 --> 01:01:29.000 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: by a website. I'm not… Not sure about them, but the suggestion.
489 01:01:29.190 --> 01:01:34.160 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: And in answer to Gary, yes, please, absolutely. Would that be coming from you yourself?
490 01:01:36.530 --> 01:01:37.790 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, I can do that.
491 01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:41.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Okay, splendid. Thank you. I will be in touch.
492 01:01:42.640 --> 01:01:46.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: In about 3 minutes.
493 01:01:46.560 --> 01:01:48.590 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I'm off to lunch.
494 01:01:48.590 --> 01:01:51.640 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Okay.
495 01:01:52.720 --> 01:01:59.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: So, I'm still looking for ideas pouring in, which is remarkable how small the pouring is at the moment.
496 01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:02.930 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: No, I'm… I'm taking Andrew's thing, I'm gonna email you.
497 01:02:02.930 --> 01:02:03.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Okay.
498 01:02:03.830 --> 01:02:04.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Alright, what would you like to say.
499 01:02:04.910 --> 01:02:05.960 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: consider it.
500 01:02:06.290 --> 01:02:08.479 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Remember, I have a list of you all, so I'll be checking.
501 01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:09.450 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: No, okay.
502 01:02:09.450 --> 01:02:22.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Well, thank you all so much for coming. I appreciate your time and your inputs and everything else, and thank you particularly for Tristram for a very splendid presentation. Thank you. Full of great ideas and thoughts. Yep, exactly.
503 01:02:22.770 --> 01:02:23.910 tristram cary Winchfield Hants: Good, thank you.
504 01:02:23.910 --> 01:02:25.390 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: See you all next time. Thank you so much.
505 01:02:25.390 --> 01:02:25.710 David Morgan-Jones: All right.
506 01:02:25.710 --> 01:02:26.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Bembridge: Take care.
507 01:02:26.220 --> 01:02:27.540 David Morgan-Jones: Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Markdown (text only) version of the presentation:
English Woodland and Timber Construction
Tristram Cary — September 2026
2. UK has very little woodland
Percentage of forest and woodland, 2024
Area
Forest and woodland cover
UK
13%
England
10%
Europe: EU
31%
Europe: total
46%
World
31%
Source: Forestry Commission.
Our lack of woodland is one of the main reasons why our wildlife and habitats are so depleted.
The UK imports more than 80% of its timber, second only to China.
3. Why is the UK so short of woodland?
3000 BC: 60–80% woodland cover.
2000 BC: Neolithic farmers cleared trees for crops and grazing, faster than in Europe.
From Tudor times, the Royal Navy used 2,000–6,000 mature oaks per warship.
The Industrial Revolution used land for mines, railways, towns and farms to support a growing population.
By 1919, woodland cover was 5%, its lowest point.
The Forestry Commission was founded in 1919 to support woodland regeneration.
4. Government woodland policy after Brexit
England Trees Action Plan 2021–2024
Now the Environment Improvement Plan (EIP).
£100 million per year to triple woodland creation from 10,000 hectares per year to 30,000 hectares per year.
Target: 16.5% tree cover by 2050.
Progress badly behind schedule.
Timber in Construction Roadmap 2025
Reduce embodied carbon in buildings.
Stimulate woodland creation and active forest management.
Support economic growth.
5. Mature woodland and carbon
Slide claim: Mature woodland does not sequester carbon; it only stores it.
The graph, for unthinned oak, shows carbon storage increasing towards an equilibrium while the annual sequestration rate peaks early and then declines.
Source: Natural England Research Report NERR094, April 2021.
6. Woodland management options
Option
Carbon storage
Harvest
1
Small store
Maximum harvest
2
Larger store
Smaller harvest
3
Maximum store
Minimum harvest
The slide uses the woodland carbon storage and sequestration graph to illustrate these options.
7. Long-term carbon sequestration
Slide claim: Only peatlands go on sequestering carbon over the long term.
The diagram compares carbon stored in habitat soils and vegetation over centuries to millennia. Peatland storage continues rising, while woodland, saltmarsh, grassland and other habitats held in succession approach plateaus.
Source: Natural England Research Report NERR094, April 2021.
8. Albedo
Albedo: The percentage of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface.
The slide states that woodland absorbs 90% of the sun’s heat and concludes:
Unmanaged ancient woodland is bad for global warming.
An illustration compares the reflectivity of surfaces including snow, clouds, sand, soil, crops, meadows, forest and water.
Source: Wikipedia.
9. Timber for construction
40% of man-made carbon comes from the construction industry, mostly from making concrete and steel.
Using timber is increasingly a much better alternative.
Wooden construction reduces “embedded carbon” by approximately 35% compared with concrete and steel.
Wooden construction also creates a “permanent” carbon store.
Barriers
There is little tradition of timber houses in the UK.
There is a perception that wooden houses will not last.
10. Engineered timber
Timber for construction is increasingly engineered to make it stronger, dimensionally stable, fireproof, rot-proof and water resistant.
Examples:
Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs).
Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT).
Glued laminated panels, or glulams.
The slide includes images of the three materials.
11. Mjøstårnet
The slide describes Mjøstårnet, Trondheim, as the tallest wooden building, at 280 feet and 16 floors.
Photographs illustrate the building.
12. Black and White Building, Shoreditch
Photographs of the Black and White office building in Shoreditch.
13. Lewes Phoenix Project
Located in the South Downs National Park.
700 timber homes.
Will store 500,000 tonnes CO₂e.
Construction is now underway.
The slide includes project images.
14. Timber architecture
Image-only slide showing a large interior with branching timber columns and an intricate timber roof structure.
15. Timber homes
Image-only slide showing two examples of timber houses: a contemporary timber-clad home and a more traditional house.
16. Superwood
By InventWood and Woodoo.
The diagram shows the following material-processing sequence:
Natural wood.
Delignification.
Delignified wood.
Matrix infiltration.
Infiltrated delignified wood.
Densification.
Delignified wood reinforced polymer (DWRP).
17. Superwood performance comparison
Claims reproduced from the slide’s comparison graphic.
Feature
Superwood
Traditional wood
Steel
Concrete
Fire safety
Class A fire rating
Class B, C
Loses integrity at high temperatures
Limited fire protection
Strength
Up to 10 times the strength-to-weight of steel
Lower strength
High strength but heavy
Compression only
Durability
Resists moisture, termites and rot
Vulnerable
Corrosion risk
Cracks over time
Weight
Six times lighter than steel
Lightweight
Heavy
Heavy
Carbon footprint
90% lower than steel
Natural sequestration
High emissions
High emissions
18. UK housing target
Three-bedroom home equivalents.
Requirement or assumption
Amount
Growth target for new homes
300,000 per year
Number of homes in the UK
30 million
Average life of homes
100 years
Therefore, need to rebuild
300,000 per year
Total residential target
600,000 per year
Commercial buildings
300,000 per year
Total buildings
900,000 per year
19. Woodland area required for timber construction
Measure
Timber frame
SIP
CLT / Glulam
Timber per three-bedroom house, m³
12
8
35
Annual extraction from mature pine/fir plantation, m³ per hectare
15
15
15
Hectares per house
0.8
0.53
2.33
Square kilometres per house
0.008
0.0053
0.023
Square kilometres for 600,000 houses
4,800
3,180
13,800
Percentage of UK area, 243,610 km²
2.0%
1.3%
5.6%
Square kilometres for 900,000 houses
7,200
4,770
20,700
Percentage of UK area
3%
1.95%
8.4%
20. Conclusion and notes
The UK woodland target of 16.5% cover by 2050 is easily enough to fulfil the UK’s complete timber requirement.
Especially if mature and ancient woodland is managed so that it can sequester “new” carbon.
Engineered wood can use any sort of timber. Large, straight planks are no longer needed.
21. Financial viability
The UK lags far behind Europe, particularly Austria and Scandinavia, in engineered wood production because of:
Smaller forests and woodland.
More mixed species.
Less established infrastructure.
Defra is now free, after the Common Agricultural Policy, to subsidise woodland for other ecosystem services, including:
Soil stability.
Biodiversity.
Clean air.
Shade.
Flood prevention.
Water quality.
Access to nature.
Therefore:
Subsidies can be designed to make timber for construction financially viable.
Extraction and engineering are making good progress.
UK engineered wood has been growing at 15% per year since 2015, from a very low base.
22. England Woodland Creation Offer
The England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO) allows payments to be “stacked” for the same piece of woodland, for example:
Woodland carbon credits.
Biodiversity units.
Flood mitigation.
Access to nature.
Other services.
23. Woodland mapping
The slide shows a map with selectable woodland and environmental opportunity layers.
24. Winchfield: flood risk and water quality
Map centred on grid reference SU 769 535, showing water-quality and flood-management woodland opportunities.
25. Winchfield: nature recovery
Map centred on SU 769 535, showing higher- and lower-priority areas in the nature recovery network.
26. Winchfield: riparian buffers
Map centred on SU 769 535, showing opportunities for woodland buffers beside rivers.
27. Winchfield: social benefits
Map centred on SU 769 535, displaying the EWCO social-benefit layer.
28. Winchfield: SSSI protection and ammonia
Map centred on SU 769 535, showing the ammonia-related opportunity layer for protecting Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
29. Woodland opportunities at parish level
Photograph of woodland.
30. England Woodland Creation Offer: local participation
EWCO grants are for a minimum area of 2 hectares, so are not available to small landowners, gardens and similar areas.
Defra is prepared to work with groups of landowners whose land is not contiguous.
This needs to be done through a legal entity, such as a Community Interest Company or cooperative.
Is this an opportunity for Odiham and other Hart parishes?
31. Process to develop an Odiham parish-level woodland plan
Identify woodland opportunity areas.
Exclude areas earmarked for other purposes in the Neighbourhood Plan or Local Plan.
Discuss with landowners.
Group landowners under a Community Interest Company or cooperative.
Apply for Defra grants.
Also support timber construction in Neighbourhood and Local Plans.
32. Odiham woodland opportunity areas
Friends of the Earth map showing potential woodland opportunity areas around Odiham.
33. Odiham tree cover
Tree planting opportunities
Friends of the Earth mapping showing existing tree cover, with areas marked as tree planting opportunities.
34. Identifying landowners
Use Land Registry polygons to identify landowners.
The map shows land parcels and identifying numbers to support landowner identification.
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