Waugh Thistleton has joined forces with Urban Splash to help tackle ‘the climate emergency ‘and decarbonise the UK construction industry by objecting to government proposals to ban the use of ‘safe structural timber’.

The architect and developer have collaborated on a model response to support the key messages of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) and Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and urged that the industry write to their MPs on the matter. While they are strongly in favour of a ban on combustible materials including those that contributed to the ‘shocking scale of the Grenfell tragedy’ and government’s moves to ban combustible cladding systems, they feel that new measures that government is consulting on are unnecessarily prohibiting the use of safe structural timber including CLT.

In a release on the matter headed ‘Save Safe Structural Timber’, Andrew Waugh and Anthony Thistleton said that a ‘strong and wide’ response from industry was needed over the next week before the consultation on a ban on combustible materials closes, at 23:45 on April 13th. 

The background to the campaign is that the Government is consulting on extending the ban on combustible materials to more building types and is proposing to lower the height from 18m to 11m, which will include all buildings of four stores and above. This ban excludes the use of CLT or glulam in external walls of residential buildings and has, said Waugh Thistleton, already had a significant impact on the use of CLT in the UK as it increases the perceived risk of timber structures. ‘The ban is unnecessary as demonstrated by a significant volume of research around the safety of engineered timber systems in the UK and abroad’. It will also ‘severely inhibit’ our ability to decarbonise the UK construction industry, they added.

The consultation on the ban on combustible materials closes at 23:45 on April 13th and responses can be made at gov.uk/government/consultations.

The MHCLG, meanwhile, is running a survey at MHCLG’s survey, and built environment professionals are being asked to help by completing it.

Waugh Thistleton and Urban Splash have collaborated to create a model response that supports the key messages of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) and Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and urged as many in the profession to share campaign messages on social media as possible.

‘The Government should recognise the significant contribution made by UK designers in fire-safe timber architecture, and new regulations should support developing these further’.