Wood Heat News: June 2026

Local smoke control rules are moving faster than the national rulebook this month. A second-tier city has voted to put its whole footprint under control despite most residents saying no, and the trade got a name in the King’s Birthday Honours. Here is what happened and what it means if you heat with wood.

Norwich votes to make the whole city a smoke control area

Norwich City Council’s Green administration has approved an air quality plan that will turn the entire city into a smoke control area, going against the result of its own consultation. Of 557 responses, 55% opposed a citywide zone and only 37% backed it, but the cabinet decided to press on, citing fine particle pollution from domestic burning. Households could face fixed penalties of up to £300 for emitting visible smoke or burning the wrong fuel, and fines of up to £1,000 for selling unauthorised fuel. This matters because Norwich is one of the country’s denser stove cities, with University College London estimating around 100 stoves per square kilometre, and it follows Oxford and Reading, which went citywide at the end of 2024. The decision is reported by Forestry Journal and Yahoo News.

Former HETAS chief Bruce Allen awarded an OBE

Bruce Allen, the long-serving former chief executive of HETAS, has been made an OBE in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours for services to renewable energy and net zero. HETAS is the body that certifies stoves, fuels and installers across the UK, so the recognition is a marker of how far the solid fuel trade has pushed cleaner appliances and the Ready to Burn fuel standard over the past decade. For buyers it is a reminder of who sits behind the badges you should be looking for: a HETAS-registered installer and a Cleaner Choice or Ecodesign stove. The honours list is covered by GB News.

What a new smoke control area actually means for you

With Norwich joining the list, it is worth being clear about what changes and what does not. Living in a smoke control area does not ban your wood burner. You can keep burning, but only in a Defra-exempt (Cleaner Choice) appliance, and only with authorised fuel: dry wood carrying the Ready to Burn mark, or a listed authorised fuel. The offence is emitting visible smoke from your chimney, which in practice comes down to a clean-burning stove plus properly dry logs. If you are unsure whether your appliance qualifies or what counts as authorised fuel, HETAS sets it out plainly in its smoke control area guide. The cheapest way to stay on the right side of the rules is dry wood: our firewood seasoning time calculator tells you when your logs will be ready to burn.