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A warning that Wales could run out of wood has come from one of the country’s biggest timber companies.

Clifford Jones Timber is the UK’s largest manufacturer of timber fence posts, manufacturing over two and a half million a year at its Denbighshire headquarters and at a second timber mill in Gretna.

But Penny Lloyd, purchasing director of the Ruthin-based company which employs over 80 staff, warned this week that a failure to meet planting targets was turning Wales into a tree-free zone and threatening an industry worth over £450m a year.

She said: “The forest industry is an essential part of the Welsh economy, and together with its ancillary businesses, sustains many rural communities.

“An on-going programme of commercial timber planting is vital for the survival of our industry.

“Back in the 1970s we were planting over 7,000 acres of trees every year – in recent years it’s been less than 250 and this is a crop that takes 20 years plus to grow to maturity.

“We have lost over 40,000 acres of forestry in the last 15 years – that’s an area one and a half times the size of Liverpool - and that needs to be replaced if our timber industry is to survive.”

'Perfect natural habitat'

Only 14% of Wales, or 750,000 acres, is forested, making it one of the least wooded countries in Europe, but the timber industry employs over 11,000 people.

Ms Lloyd added: “There seems to be an opposition to planting conifers but it makes sense in terms of the needs of both commercial forestry, and conservational and amenity woodlands.”

Ms Lloyd pointed to Newborough Forest on Anglesey, where Clifford Jones Timber has worked extensively, endeavouring to meet the highest environmental and conservational constraints.

“The site is a perfect example of commercial forestry and amenity woodlands working hand in hand,” she said.

“Forestry not only offers the perfect natural habitat for rare native species, such as the red squirrel, but provides massive environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration and the prevention of flooding and soil erosion.”

Everything is used

Clifford Jones Timber buys more than 100,000 tons of timber annually, and say their practices ensure that nothing is wasted and that nothing leaves their premises without an invoice.

They use the wood, bark and all, to make not just fence posts but laminated timber for the construction and leisure industries, gates and dried logs, and they provide the residue to make over 25,000 tons of pellets and briquettes.

The company recently hosted an event as part of the Welsh Government’s Inside Welsh Industry programme to showcase the sustainability and innovation of their processes.

Chairman Richard Jones added: “Because of the shortage of home grown timber we have to make the most of everything we buy.

“We are constantly looking at ways of diversifying so that we get the maximum from the timber we bring in through the gates but that is in increasingly short supply because of lack of investment since the 1990s.

“Only just over 200 acres were planted last year but we need to be planting 50,000 acres a year to meet long-term targets set by the Welsh Government.

“The situation is just as bad in England, although in Scotland the Government’s attitude towards the forest industry is marginally better.

“There’s a huge market for our timber. Every sawmill in Wales would double or treble production if the timber was there to feed that mill.”

Clifford Jones Timber was founded in 1948 and is now headed by chairman Richard Jones, and commercial director Sarah Jones-Smith, his sister, the third generation of the family.

They send shipments of their fence posts as far afield as the Falkland Islands, while other clients for their timber products have included Center Parcs, a luxury treehouse builder, award winning vineyards and a deckchair company.