The influx of competitively priced imported sawn timber has changed the dynamics of the UK timber trade, but the British-grown timber sector continues to hold its own.

In fact the market share the sector has worked hard to achieve over the last two decades still sits at around 40% of UK consumption although, within that, the fortunes of British-grown fencing and pallet wood is currently much rosier than that for construction grade.

The squeeze on raw material availability that was so testing in 2018 seems to have abated and wood supply has improved significantly, according to Confor.

The private forest growers have been encouraged to come on board, persuaded by the buoyant log prices, changes in policy and the age profiles of their trees. They now account for around 60% of supply with the Forestry Commission accounting for 40% – a reversal of the supply pattern of just a few years ago.

“The public forestry sector has played a vital role in supporting and encouraging the growth of the domestic wood processing sector,” said David Sulman, deputy chief executive at Confor. “It has provided guarantees of production, which has been vital for confidence in the processing sector.”

The private forestry sector can be more “volatile”, driven as it is by price but although log prices have started to come back down they are still too steep for sawmillers’ comfort. This is particularly true for those mills producing construction timber, who are hit by the ready availability of low priced imports.

In terms of future supply, there has been encouraging news on the tree planting front – in Scotland at least. It was recently announced that Scotland has met its tree planting target for the first time, comfortably beating its 10,000ha per year goal with 11,200ha of new trees planted in 2018. Forests now cover about 18.7% of Scotland’s land mass and the aim is to increase that figure to 21% by 2032.

About 60% of the new planting in Scotland is productive conifer, which is in the right ballpark of the 60-70% that Confor has recommended to government.

It is still a very different picture in England and Wales, however, and the constant changing of the guard at Defra and lack of joined up thinking between government departments and agencies is very problematic.

“There are a couple of [planting] schemes coming through in the north of England but they are in the very low hundreds of hectares,” said Andrew Heald, Confor technical director.

“We had a very positive meeting with the former forestry minister, David Rutley, a few weeks ago in Northumberland and everyone made the right noises,” he continued. “But if the government wants new planting to go ahead it has to make that message clearer for Defra and its agencies because at the moment they have a mix of competing objectives.”

Northumberland is a case in point, added Mr Sulman. “There is clearly scope for significant new planting but Northumberland National Park says no to conifers.

“It’s all very well ministers saying forestry and forest products help mitigate the effects of climate change – let’s put those words into actions.”

Confor has welcomed Teresa Villiers as the new Defra secretary of state and Zac Goldsmith as the new forestry minister and is looking forward to picking up where they left off with their predecessors. But Zac Goldsmith’s interest in forestry is as yet unknown – and in a letter to constituents on July 30 announcing his appointment as a parliamentary under-secretary for Defra, jointly with DfID, he made no mention of it, focusing instead on “tackling the illegal wildlife trade, promoting biodiversity overseas, and strengthening animal welfare standards at home”.

Of course, much of the legwork is done by officials further down the pecking order but progress on new planting in Scotland, which has had robust support from cabinet secretary Fergus Ewing, has made it pretty clear that “having ministerial buy-in and support really does make all the difference”.

“We have been involved in the development of the new English Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs) and it does look quite promising from a woodland creation point of view – certainly a lot better than it was,” said Mr Heald. “But from a commercial, production standpoint it requires the same prioritisation and commitment from government that we have seen in Scotland. We need a target to deliver against, not just an aspiration.”

Brexit has diverted politicians’ attention away from such matters but the forest products sector has largely adopted a business as usual approach, simply because no-one knows what the post-Brexit reality will be.

However, uncertainty still remains around the future cost of imports of machine parts, delays at ports, the availability of labour and leaving the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

“The agricultural and land management support payments have needed reform for a long time,” said Mr Heald. “We need to have an integrated approach to land management and move away from these silos of forestry and environment and land and agriculture. Any kind of levelling of the playing field should be good from a woodland management point of view.”

However, as Mr Sulman added, while the UK government has provided a range of assurances of continuing support to the agricultural sector, such assurances have been completely absent for forestry.

“This is a worry because forestry grant schemes and other support mechanisms are a vital component in ensuring we get the planting we want and need.”

Against the Brexit backdrop, British sawmills have continued to be busy and there is no shortage of supply for buyers of home-grown timber. As mentioned, fierce competition from imported softwood has hit mills producing construction timber and there is talk of some production curtailment.

The seasonal upturn in demand for fencing and garden products provided welcome business, while the pallets sector has been a mixed picture.

“There has been a definite Brexit impact there,” said Mr Sulman. “Many companies built stocks [prior to the original March 29 deadline] and a lot of that material is sitting on pallets in warehouses up and down the country. The pallet manufacturers didn’t do too badly because there was increased demand but anyone involved in repairing and refurbishing pallets is having a very lean time because so many of the pallets are in use in warehouses.”

The processing sector is known for its resilience and its rolling programme of investment and that hasn’t changed.

“We continue to see investments in value added operations and in improved productivity,” said Mr Sulman. “We’re seeing it across the board in small, medium and large businesses.”

He cited as examples, James Jones’ Hangingshaw development at Lockerbie and its I-joist facility at Forres, Charles Ransford’s “world class timber treatment facility” and Teifi Timber’s increased sawmill mechanisation.

Looking ahead, the cautious optimism seems to have modified to just caution, thanks to dents in profitability in some sections of the market and to continuing Brexit uncertainties. However, there are still pocket of positivity.

“There is general optimism in the forest management sector, particularly in Scotland, buoyed by the high timber prices last year,” said Mr Heald.

“There is a lot of demand for new land and new planting and forest management companies are recruiting, which feels very positive.

“Prices have come back on where they were last year but there are still a lot of people very keen on investing in forestry and that is driving the market from the other end,” he said.