I don’t know, typical journalists. There we were thinking we’d successfully refuted mistaken earlier reports that timber frame construction was partly to blame for the severity of the fire at the Yarl’s Wood immigration centre. Then in a leader article this week on the blaze inquiry The Guardian repeated the slur. Clearly the editor of that esteemed organ forgot to read his TTJ just after the fire when we revealed that Yarl’s Wood had, in fact, been steel frame. It all goes to show that the timber frame sector still cannot afford to drop its guard on the media and public relations fronts.
Having said that, as our special timber frame feature shows this week, the industry is now better equipped than ever to speak and stand up for itself. In the UK Timber Frame Association it has a dynamic body involved in educating and enlightening both professionals and consumers. And wood. for good is also solidly behind the industry, promoting timber frame to architects, builders and other specifiers.
Timber frame’s rapidly growing presence in the UK construction sector, in both domestic and commercial sectors, means that it also has an increasingly impressive track record to gainsay the doubters. It really is covering all the bases; being used in everything from prestige flagship buildings, to mass housing developments.
The industry is also buoyed by government plans to boost affordable, sustainable housebuilding and by increasing pressures towards off-site construction methods. And timber frame specialists and their suppliers are expressing their confidence in the market with major investment in new facilities.
So while we still need to deal with the myths and misreporting about timber frame, these days their impact is likely to cause less of a splash than a ripple.
