FOUNDERS of forestry and woodland investment specialist Tustins, Mike Tustin and John Clegg, recently raised a glass to a decade of partnership.

In a piece written by Mike on the Tustins website, he said that he began working at John Clegg & Co in 2010, and was the final person to join the firm to work with the two John Cleggs – John A Glegg (Senior), who founded the firm in 1967, and his son, John E Clegg, who he has worked closely with ever since.

After joining John Clegg & Co, Mike helped develop the business and was invited into the partnership some years later. He continued to work in the business after its subsequent sale to Strutt and Parker and merger into French bank, BNP Paribas.

Mike once again joined forces with John early this year to start up Tustins, with the goal of providing a specialised, customer-centric woodland agency and forestry consultancy business.

Mike wrote: "Whilst raising a socially distanced glass of fizz, we started pondering what we had achieved as a team. It turns out that in our first decade working together, we have purchased or sold around 800 woodlands, driven 140,000 miles, become RICS registered valuers, watched forestry and timber values increase at a steady pace, confronted new diseases like Phytopthora and Chalara, seen further devolution with its positive and negative effects on the forestry sector and, more importantly than ever, had a lot of fun working together along the way.

"What is going to happen in the next ten years?  Hopefully, we shall see substantial new woodland creation and a growing awareness of the value of timber and the role it plays. We will certainly be working hard to ensure that the true value of the forestry sector to the British economy is recognised and that the social benefits woodland brings can be extended to all parts of the UK."

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