Utilization of softwoods in Great Britain

Abstract

The change in scale in wood processing in the UK over the past 70 years is huge. From a position where sawmilling was on small scale satisfying local market needs with native broadleaf species, it is now a huge industry supplying about 26 per cent of our sawn softwood demand; mainly from the exotic, Sitka spruce. Development has seen the industry reach levels of technology equivalent to those in the Nordic countries and north America; Seventy years ago the only board manufacturing plants were producing plywood from imported tropical logs. Now the board industries produce chipboards, strand boards, MDF and cement bonded particleboards from the home grown resource. Overall we produce some 56 per cent of UK consumption of these products whilst in the growing MDF sector home production represents 78 per cent of demand. The wood pulp industry has developed over the past 15-20 years from a position where it had almost ceased to exist to the present situation of large volumes of newsprint, magazine papers, packaging board and fluting being produced, largely on four capital intensive sites. The sawmilling, board manufacturing and pulp and paper industries are mutually dependent upon one another for their successful operation. Residue material from sawmills, for example, provides an important income source, whilst the market for small roundwood provides cash flow for forest owners prior to felling of the final sawlog crop.