LEADERS of the forestry and timber industries met Mary Creagh to seek the forestry minister's support for the Timber in Construction Roadmap.

Chief executives Stuart Goodall (Confor) and Andrew Carpenter (STA) received a very positive response from Ms Creagh to continue progress on the roadmap, developed in partnership between the sector and the last government.

“The Roadmap is not a party political document, it’s an opportunity to decarbonise construction and house-building, and to support home-grown timber with the benefits that brings for domestic economic growth and jobs”, said Stuart. “The Minister came across as enthusiastic about reducing the emissions from construction and could see that timber has an important role to play in that.”

The main purpose of the meeting was to secure the Minister’s support and for Ms Creagh to write to ministerial counterparts in the relevant departments to ask them to continue the cross-departmental work that was underway with the previous Government to implement the Roadmap. The Minister will now do that, and it is hoped a positive answer can be received before the end of the year.

The Minister also confirmed that she is looking forward to speaking at the Confor policy conference at Westminster on 5 December and Stuart highlighted the National Wood Strategy for England as a means to help deliver the Roadmap for domestic timber.

He added: “We had a very positive meeting with the Minister. There’s a lot that industry and Government can be working on together to deliver the Government’s aspirations for the economy and net zero, and we look forward to working with Minister Creagh on that.”