Knight Frank and Maydencroft Announce Formal Partnership to Deliver Integrated Land and Environmental Services

Knight Frank and Maydencroft have announced a formal service partnership that will see Maydencroft's specialist environmental and land management consultancy delivered in-house as part of Knight Frank's rural estate services offering.

The agreement formalises a working relationship that stretches back to the mid-2000s, when Maydencroft - then a small rural contracting firm in Hertfordshire - began providing tree safety inspections and land management consultancy to Knight Frank's eastern region. Over the intervening years, as Maydencroft grew to a team of around 150 people across multiple divisions and offices, the two organisations worked increasingly closely together across forestry, veteran tree management, protected species surveys, invasive species control and, more recently, biodiversity net gain (BNG).

Rather than a conventional outsourcing arrangement, the partnership allows Maydencroft's services to be offered as an integrated part of Knight Frank's proposition, so that clients receive a joined-up experience without the friction of managing multiple external consultants. For Knight Frank this means a broader and more confident range of environmental and ecological expertise; for Maydencroft, a platform to reach new estates and new clients across Knight Frank's national network.

Mark Topliff, Natural Capital Consultant at Knight Frank, said: "The rural estate sector is navigating a period of considerable change, and our clients rightly expect authoritative, integrated advice that reflects both the complexity and the opportunity that presents. Our relationship with Maydencroft has been built over many years of close working, and formalising that into a structured partnership felt like the right step - both for the quality of service we can offer and for the long-term benefit of the estates and landowners we work with."

The announcement comes at a significant moment for the sector. Biodiversity net gain - already mandatory for most developments in England - is set to extend to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) later this year, opening up substantial new opportunities for landowners and their advisers. Both organisations have been active in this space for several years and are well placed to support clients in navigating this evolving market. Beyond BNG, the partnership spans the full range of Maydencroft's consultancy services, including forestry, arboriculture, ecology, nature recovery and landscape.

Jon Collins, Head of Consultancy at Maydencroft, said: "What excites me most about this agreement is that it genuinely works both ways. We encounter clients who need exactly what Knight Frank can offer, just as they encounter estates that need our technical expertise - having that formal structure in place means we can act quickly and confidently for the people we work with, knowing there is real depth on both sides."

The partnership is already producing results on the ground. In Kent, Maydencroft and Knight Frank have been collaborating on the management of a private estate where an initial forestry brief has evolved into a broader programme of sensitive veteran tree management and ecological survey work - precisely the kind of integrated, multi-disciplinary approach the formal agreement is designed to make possible at scale. More recently, the two organisations have been working with Knight Frank's Harrogate office on a programme combining biodiversity net gain assessment with tree safety inspections across an estate in the north of England - one of the first projects delivered under the new formal agreement, and an early indicator of the national reach the partnership is intended to bring.

To find out more about the services offered, get in touch at https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/commercial/rural-property