The UK Forest Market Report

Xander Mahony

'A Market Overview' (Speaker for London and Edinburgh)

Head of Forestry Investment, Tilhill

Xander leads the Forestry Investment team. He is based in the Yorkshire office and advises clients on land and forestry acquisitions across the UK.

Xander brings broad investment knowledge from working in the European and Asian stock markets, and venture capital in Silicon Valley.

He also has experience working in government, and the non-profit sector, and has completed all three levels of the CFA program.

Jon Lambert

'Market Sentiment' (Speaker for London and Edinburgh)

Goldcrest Founding Partner

Jon Lambert is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a Registered Valuer. Formerly an Equity Partner and then Senior Director of John Clegg & Co.

Jon brings three decades of experience adding value to rural assets, be it for disposal or long term hold. His strengths lie in brokerage and asset management of woods, forestry, residential estates and renewable energy assets.

He has overseen the disposal of 150,000 hectares to the value of £700m in Scotland alone in the last 15 years.

Peter Fisher

'Using Timber in Architecture' (London event)

Director, Bennetts Associates

Peter Fisher is a driving force behind many pioneering sustainable projects at Bennetts Associates, a UK-based practice that has achieved a series of ‘world-firsts’ in sustainability. Having studied both architecture and environmental design he is fascinated by architecture that straddles the two disciplines. Peter has taught, lectured and written widely on the subject of architecture and sustainability. Currently he is overseeing several net zero carbon workplace projects that are pioneering the use of timber, and re-use, including Timber Square in Southwark, London whilst developing Bennetts Associates’ own carbon removals strategy.

Robin Livingstone

'Working with Timber' (Edinburgh event)

Director, Fraser/ Livingstone Architects Limited

Robin Livingstone is a Dunfermline-born architect, a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and a member of the RIAS and RIBA. He has over 20 years of practice-based experience working on the delivery of a diverse range of award-winning projects across the residential, community, public and arts sectors.

He co-founded Fraser/Livingstone Architects in January 2019. The Edinburgh-based practice has established a reputation for delivering contemporary architecture in challenging contexts across Scotland and beyond, from tight-knit city centre locations to new communities within sensitive rural settings. Their work puts people, and their lived experience at the heart of their thinking through an approach informed by a respect for the integrity of the built and natural environment, and an engagement with materials, form, craft and climate. The practice is also acutely aware of the environmental consequences of building in an unsustainable manner, advocating for progressive forms of construction and the use of natural, healthy, innovative, carbon-locking materials in recognition of the urgency with which the construction sector needs to respond to the climate emergency.

Notable projects include the Tollhouse restaurant at Canonmills in Edinburgh, involving the adaptive reuse of a former public toilet block on the Water of Leith; Simon Square, a new urban tenement off Edinburgh’s Pleasance formed in innovative cross-laminated timber construction; Athron Hill, a new community of timber-clad homes  within a mature woodland on the southern slopes of the Ochils; Black Loch Resort near Limerigg in the heart of Scotland, creating new solid-timber holiday lodges, restaurant and boathouse on a former fishery; and Dallas Dhu, a Moray Growth Deal funded low-carbon multi-generational mixed use community in Forres.

Robin also has over 15 years of academic experience and has lectured on his work in practice at various architecture schools across the UK. He continues to combine work in practice with teaching architecture at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Central Lancashire.

Ben Goh

'Tree Genetics' (Speaker for London & Edinburgh event)

Commercial Manager, Maelor Forest Nurseries

Ben joined Maelor Forest Nurseries in 2021, as the nurseries commercial manager having previously worked in the bioenergy sector for E.ON and AMP Clean Energy, developing local and international biomass supply chains. He grew up in a horticultural family business and trained as a mechanical engineer.

Maelor Forest Nurseries is the largest commercial tree nursery in the UK , part of the BSW Group providing around 35 million trees a year from its 200 hectare site in Wrexham, Wales and 70 hectare site in Forres, Scotland. Ben’s role is to balance the nursery’s production with customers’ requirements. This involves managing sales and orders, as well as scanning the horizon for innovation and changes in demand. Ben works with many forest managers to trial new species and hybrids which will be more resilient under the climatic conditions anticipated in the coming decades.