OK, it may not have got as many column inches as Brian Aldridge’s shower-time clinch with the GP’s wife, David Archer’s cold-blooded badger murder or, of course, the series’ recent first gay kiss. But story line in BBC Radio’s The Archers’ about the Carter family’s plans to build the first modern timber frame house in Ambridge has also attracted newspaper attention.
I admit it’s not very likely that this development is going to prompt tens of thousands of Archers afficianados to rush out and invest in timber frame. But it is yet another indication that this form of construction is now increasingly firmly bedded in UK consumer consciousness.
Another sign of the times is the “Manufactured Solutions” show-within-a-show at Interbuild at the end of April which will be devoted to offsite construction. Whole houses, classrooms and even a hospital ward will be built at the exhibition to highlight how rapid building can be with latest off-site systems and how they can offset the UK’s shortage of traditional site construction skills. The steel frame sector will be out in force, but so too will timber frame and wood-based panel systems. One firm will build a single-storey house featuring a new fast-build roof system. Another will feature a two-storey home with cut-away sections to show just how modern timber frame works.
Further underlining the growing importance of this approach to building, a new offsite construction industry body will also be launched at the show.
Some sections of the timber trade fear that timber frame may cut them out of the supply loop, with builders and developers getting the whole-house package from timber frame specialists. The more positive view is that there are opportunities in the market for all types and sizes of business and that, as the UK becomes an increasingly timber frame-friendly market, it will have a beneficial knock-on for other wood products, from windows to garden furniture.
Meanwhile, back in Ambridge, the Carters anxiously await planning approval. We’ll keep any non-Archers fans out there abreast of latest developments.
