Wood-burning stoves to face partial ban in Labour’s updated environment plan
Wood-burning stoves to face partial ban in Labour’s updated environment plan
Wood-burning stoves could face partial ban in Labour’s updated environment plan
Wood-burning stoves to face partial ban in Labour’s updated environment plan
Exclusive: Pollution targets set out alongside nature recovery projects to allay concerns over housebuilding Helena Horton and Peter Walker Mon 1 Dec 2025 06.00 CET
Wood-burning stoves are likely to face tighter restrictions in England under new pollution targets set as part of an updated environmental plan released by ministers on Monday.
Speaking to the Guardian before the publication of the updated environmental improvement plan (EIP), the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, said it would boost nature recovery in a number of areas, replacing an EIP under the last government she said was “not credible”.
Reynolds said efforts to restore nature would now take place on “a strategic level” rather than a previously piecemeal approach, arguing this meant the government’s push to build housing and infrastructure could still come with a net gain in habitats.
Are wood burning stoves really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things compared with industry, transportation, and agriculture?
I'm speaking from a place of ignorance here, so happy to be corrected, but are the environmental benefits worth the potential public backlash against environmentalism as a whole?
Currently they're the perfect backup in case of blackout or heating system failure. You can't really go wrong with fire and a metal box, so many people like to have them for redundancy, particularly in the Highlands. After all, no heating in the middle of winter, could be the difference between life and death for some people.
The problem is what people burn. If the wood hasn't been properly dried (i.e. somebody has just gathered up local wood and throws it on the fire) then it burns very inefficiently. That produces a lot of smoke, and because it doesn't produce a lot of heat, people burn more of it. The smoke can get trapped low in the atmosphere and you end up with smog in cities.
This happened a lot in Victorian London which is why Sherlock Holmes is always depicted cashing people through in an extremely foggy London. It was air pollution from wood burning.
It's already against the law to burn unseasoned wood (anything with a moisture content over 20%) in a home wood burner, the issue is enforcement.
London was smoggy because of the fact that an entire city was run on coal, not wood burning stoves, especially the unregulated air pollution from industry.