This piece is an extract from our A View from the Forest (previously Forestry Features) newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Wednesday with a round-up of the week's top stories.
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TAKE a moment and look around you. How many objects in your close proximity had their origins in the woods? In my (home) office, I count seven – including my desk and a picture frame – and that's before I get into the individual books on my (wooden) bookshelves.
Through all the talk of budgets, conifer subsidies, and the UK's tree-planting woes, sometimes it's nice to take a moment to reflect on why foresters do it in the first place. And that's to provide the world with the multitude of benefits trees deliver, including those so easily overlooked and undervalued by the crowd.
Take this story you might have missed from the other month (I know I did) as a prime example of how timber could, and should, be more widely used.
On a former industrial site in Lewes, development company Human Nature has received planning approval to build a sustainable 685-home neighbourhood that will be the UK's largest made from timber.
The Phoenix, which was granted planning permission in February, will be built from engineered timber and may well be the most sustainable neighbourhood in the country.
"When complete, it will be the UK's largest timber-structure neighbourhood and a blueprint for sustainable placemaking and social impact that can be deployed at scale," a statement from the developers – founded by former Greenpeace directors Michael Manolson and Jonathan Smales – read.
Located in the South Downs National Park, the Phoenix will contain energy-efficient homes, public space and healthcare, retail, hospitality and industrial space, all constructed from engineered timber including cross-laminated timber. It will be the largest structural timber neighbourhood in the UK by number of units.
The buildings will range from two to five storeys tall and be clad in prefabricated panels made from locally-sourced timber and biomaterials such as hemp.
During a period where foresters are having to justify the need to plant even more trees, the Phoenix comes as a timely reminder of just how vital that mission is.
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