The Planning Room with Southby & Co

Wiltshire Treehouse supports bereaved children and young people across Swindon and Wiltshire. In this episode, Business Director Sarah Bear explains how that support actually works, and what it costs to deliver.

Welcome to episode two of The Planning Room, conversations about life, money and what comes next, with Southby & Co Financial Planning.

This episode also marks the first appearance of Jenny Ashfield, the practice’s other financial planner. Jenny explains why she left a career she already knew well to join Dave Southby, why the community work was part of that decision rather than a bonus on top of it, and what the team have been up to in what they christened their summer of fundraising. There is a half marathon in Bristol, a 27.5 mile walk from Stonehenge back to Avebury, and a Swindon Half Marathon that Dave insists he will never repeat. Jenny gives him about six months.

Sarah then explains what Wiltshire Treehouse does in practice: the group programmes, the one-to-one work with parents and carers beforehand, the drop-in sessions now running in Chippenham and Devizes, and why group work matters so much more than people expect. As she puts it, the power of walking through a door and realising you are not the only person who has lost someone special is hard to overstate.

She also explains where the name came from, and why the handprints in the charity’s logo are not a design choice. They belong to the first group of children Wiltshire Treehouse ever supported, who are now in their late twenties.

And there are the numbers. In 2025, the charity supported 403 children and young people, alongside close to 900 parents and siblings, and trained around 500 professionals who work with children, all on an annual spend of roughly 120,000 pounds, equivalent to two full-time members of staff. Sarah explains exactly what the money Southby & Co have raised this year will pay for, right down to the individual programme it covers.

Wiltshire Treehouse are looking for a charity partner for next year, and are recruiting volunteers and charity champions. Find out more at https://wiltshiretreehouse.org.uk or contact Sarah at [email protected]

Southby & Co Financial Planning support individuals, families and business owners across Swindon, Wroughton, Wiltshire and beyond. Find out more at https://www.southbyfp.co.uk or get in touch at https://www.southbyfp.co.uk/contact
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01793 953800

The Planning Room is produced by Visual PR Productions.

Southby & Co Financial Planning Ltd is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group's wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group's website at www.sjp.co.uk/products.

SJP Approved: 19/10/2026

Meet Dave Southby, the financial planner behind Southby & Co Financial Planning in Wroughton, Swindon, and hear how a Land Rover apprentice ended up building a financial planning practice rooted in its local Wiltshire community.

Welcome to the first episode of The Planning Room, conversations about life, money and what comes next, with Southby & Co Financial Planning.

Before Dave was advising clients on retirement, later life and legacy, he was a qualified Land Rover technician who had never heard of a financial adviser. In this opening episode, he sits down with host Chris Dawes to trace the whole route: the last-minute phone call that got him onto an apprenticeship at all, six years in car sales, the Covid furlough that quietly turned into an exam period, and the day he finished the St. James’s Place Academy and was told to go and find his own clients from a converted spare bedroom.

From there it becomes a story about building something. Dave is honest about the fear of taking on a first employee and becoming responsible for somebody else’s mortgage, about the three distinct stages of growing a team, and about why Dave Southby Financial Planning eventually had to become Southby & Co. He explains where the practice helps clients most, across retirement planning, later life and legacy planning, inheritance tax and trusts, protection and advice for business owners, and why he deliberately refers mortgage work out to specialists rather than pretending to cover everything.
 

The second half is about the thing Southby & Co are quietly known for around Swindon and Wiltshire: giving back. Dave explains why he wanted the business to be a platform for it, how the charity of the year works, and why awareness is often worth more to a small charity than another cheque. There is a fundraiser involving a marathon walk, a children’s cancer charity whose mascot is a tortoise, and the only outfit he could actually get hold of. And there is the reason he sponsors grassroots football in Wroughton, which goes back to a kid in a sponsored jacket who never remembered the company names but never forgot how it felt.
 

Southby & Co Financial Planning support individuals, families and business owners across Swindon, Wroughton, Wiltshire and beyond, with retirement planning, later life and legacy planning, investment planning, protection and corporate services. If you have a question and you are not even sure what it is yet, that is a perfectly good reason to get in touch.
 

Find out more at https://www.southbyfp.co.uk or get in touch at https://www.southbyfp.co.uk/contact
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01793 953800

The Planning Room is produced by Visual PR Productions.

Will writing involves the referral to a service which is separate and distinct to those offered by St. James's Place. Wills and Trusts are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Southby & Co Financial Planning Ltd is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group's wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group's website at www.sjp.co.uk/products.

SJP Approved 21/09/2026