28 | Sector Focus: Preservatives & Fire Retardants
SUMMARY
■ Walford Timber was founded in 1945 ■ It produces the PermaTimber range ■ Walford is a WPA Benchmark- certified treater
■ The Ross-on-Wye treatment plant has been modernised
RAISING THE BAR
Longstanding wood business Walford Timber has made a landmark investment in timber treatment, writes Michael Allen, the company’s digital marketing manager
Few businesses in the UK timber trade can claim a heritage stretching back more than eight decades, but Walford Timber is one of them. Founded in 1945 and headquartered in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, the company has grown from a local sawmill operation into a respected independent timber merchant, operating from sites in Ross-on-Wye, Cheltenham and Chesham. Its product range spans fencing, landscaping timber, closeboard components, trellis, decking, and specialist long-life posts, most of which are pressure- treated on site before leaving the yard. Treatment has always been central to
Walford’s work. The company was a founder of incising technology in the UK, a process that creates micro-incisions in the timber surface to allow preservative to penetrate far deeper than standard treatment alone, dramatically improving performance in ground-contact applications. That pioneering work underpins the
PermaTimber range, a portfolio of fence posts backed by industry-recognised guarantees and verified by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). Walford Timber is also a WPA Benchmark-certified treater, subject to independent auditing, and its treatment work is supported by the Arxada Treat-Right Warranty.
A LANDMARK INVESTMENT Against that backdrop, the decision to carry out a wholesale overhaul of the Ross-on-Wye treatment plant represents a significant moment in the company’s history. The facility had been in continuous operation for 33 years, but age had begun to tell, and Walford’s ambitions for capacity, efficiency and environmental performance demanded something new. Work began in October 2025 and was completed in early 2026. The old plant was removed and key infrastructure replaced, retaining only two recently installed pressure vessels that met current standards. The redesigned plant adds storage tanks for
TTJ | Summer 2026 |
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greater flexibility and capacity, improves the layout for better workflow, upgrades pumps for greater efficiency, and expands automation for quality control and reduced downtime Increased tank capacity enables Walford to complete more treatment cycles within each working period. This leads to shorter lead times and greater product availability across fencing and landscaping ranges. Automation upgrades provide more consistent charge management and cycle monitoring, reducing batch-to-batch variation and improving traceability.
MARKET CONDITIONS AND OUTLOOK FOR TREATED TIMBER Walford is investing as demand for treated timber remains strong, driven by steady residential activity and lasting interest in garden improvement. Treated timber continues to play a structural role in housebuilding and commercial projects, and its long-term value remains high within low-carbon frameworks. Despite strong demand, rising energy costs challenge treatment operations. Pressure treatment is energy-intensive, and increases in electricity and gas prices have tightened margins. The new plant addresses these challenges by
reducing energy consumption per cubic metre, blending environmental and economic goals. A separate challenge – and one that the wider trade would do well to address collectively – is the persistent confusion among end users and some buyers around what correctly treated timber actually means. Not all pressure-treated timber is equal, and the differences between use classes, treatment depths, retention levels and preservative systems are not well understood outside of specialist circles. Walford encounters customers regularly who have been supplied with timber treated to a lower use class than their application demands, or who have accepted untreated or minimally treated timber on price alone without appreciating the long-term implications. The consequences can be significant. Timber installed in ground contact or in persistently wet environments without appropriate treatment to Use Class 4 will fail far sooner than the customer expects, generating warranty claims, reputational damage and waste. WPA Benchmark certification and third- party warranties exist precisely to provide verified assurance.
New treatment tanks in place at Walford Timber
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