In your article “Insurers call for urgent probe into timber-frame fire risk” (27 August, page 9) you state that the UK Timber Frame Association dismissed the findings of the government’s report on fire safety

This is really not the case. We are simply asking for a more robust approach to analysis of the data as a way for us to better understand the issues. We are already in discussion with communities department about the statistics as our initial investigations suggests they are open to criticism.

It’s easy to (selectively) pick data out to make good headlines, but what matters is how, in this case the timber frame industry, uses the information provided by the communities department to further improve the robustness of timber frame. We are dealing with a very small quantity of fires as far as timber frame is concerned and that it’s impossible to draw hard-and-fast conclusions. We are not dismissing anything when it comes to dealing with such critical things as fires in buildings.

Geoff Arnold, chairman, UK Timber Frame Association

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