The review shows that timber has maintained its place among the larger manufacturing sectors, and moved into the top 10 fastest growing UK manufacturing sectors, achieving 11.4% growth in wood products on the previous year.
UK forestry and logging was shown to have grown by 20.4%. The growth rate in the wood and wood products sector also outperformed many related industries, such as furniture, plastics and the construction of buildings.
Together the forestry and wood products sector achieved a combined value of £9.5bn in turnover.
Despite this, the figures show that the timber market for 2015 suffered a small contraction from the previous two very strong years of growth. This was not exclusive to the timber industry however and reflected the overall economic slowdown in the UK, Eurozone and across the globe.
Having followed a general trend of growth from 2008 to 2014, domestic and imported wood consumption decreased in 2015 by 1.8%. This was predominantly due to changes in imported consumption: hardwood and MDF consumption decreased, whilst softwood remained stable and plywood and fibreboard consumption grew from 2014. For copy of the report: owalton@ttf.co.uk
