![]() ![]() Coppice forestry also creates skilled rural jobs. Coppicing is also naturally regenerative and harvesting in this way encourages higher levels of biodiversity than other monoculture woodlands. When coppiced, sweet chestnut re-grows multiple, straight lengths of roundwood from each ‘stool’. ![]() To achieve milling efficiency, new radial cutting techniques were tested for repeatability on mobile sawmills, ensuring they could be reproduced elsewhere in the UK. We designed a building ‘kit of parts’ with a low-waste, high yield philosophy, leading to components that are cost-competitive with imported alternatives. The HGH project addresses these issues by designing building components with a range of small, medium and large diameter roundwood in mind. Many formerly coppiced woodlands have fallen out of regular harvest cycles, are more prone to diseases and pests, and contain a mixture of small, medium and large diameter trees with few markets. The UK imports 80% of its wood products and only 59% of UK woodlands are under active management. Yet the opportunities this presents for sustainable local timber use are being missed. The HomeGrownHouse (HGH) research project challenges this status quo by exploring new, value-added uses for coppiced sweet chestnut in buildings in the SE of England, where the highest number of new-start building projects sit alongside the most abundant coppiced sweet chestnut. The majority is converted into fencing or burnt as biomass. However, very little UK grown sweet chestnut is used in construction. Sweet Chestnut is a durable, straight growth, dimensionally stable timber well suited to use in buildings. HomeGrownHouse is a collaboration between London Metropolitan University, Grown in Britain and the Birling Estate. These studies were written by collaborators on the projects. Here we take a look at two of those projects in more detail. In our Woods into Management Forestry Innovation Funds projects blog post we gave a brief introduction into those 17 successful projects. During National Tree Week in 2021 it was announced that the the Woods into Management Forestry Innovation Funds would distribute almost £700,000 to 17 projects restoring biodiversity in vulnerable natural habitats, helping woodlands adapt to a changing climate and aiding their recovery from the impacts of pests and diseases. ![]()
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