Softwood Sawlog Price Index: Great Britain 1985-2016

Great Britain's Softwood Sawlog Price Index tracks price changes for six-month periods from March 1985 to at least September 2015. The dataset provides underlying average price figures for Great Britain and supports the official National Statistics Timber Price Indices release. It is published by the Forestry Commission.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term timber price trends based on the six-month price index series.
• Calculating average softwood sawlog prices in Great Britain using the underlying price figures.
• Supporting official statistical releases by providing the source data for the Timber Price Indices.
• Conducting economic research on the forestry sector's market dynamics over a 30-year period.

Strengths

• Covers a long and consistent time series from March 1985 to at least September 2015.
• Provides both a calculated price index and underlying average price figures for deeper analysis.
• Serves as official supporting data for National Statistics publications, implying a degree of quality control.

Limitations

• Conflicting end dates across sources (March 2015, September 2015, March 2016) create uncertainty about the exact temporal coverage.
• Critical metadata such as column names, row counts, and license information are completely missing from all provided sources.
• The dataset's structure and specific calculation methodology for the index are not described.

Provenance

Source

Forestry Commission

Collection Method

Likely compiled from industry surveys or transaction data to calculate price indices.

Time Range

1985-03 to 2016-03 (conflicting end dates)

Freshness

Last updated metadata dates range from 2026-06-29, but the underlying data appears to end between 2015 and 2016.

Geography

Great Britain