For those in their sixties and older “Somerset and Dorset” were linked by having a joint railway (Slow and Dirty) . Dorset and Somerset folk have always thought of themselves as different from one another!
I’ve spent the weekend in Somerset (Yeovil) and Dorset (Shaftesbury). These counties aren’t as distant from London as Cornwall and Devon but there is a defiance to being pushed about that is clear from this article by Sandra Woolf or Mallowstreet
LPPI attracts two more funds
Purbeck splendour
Dorset – comes quietly
Dorset
The £4.1bn Dorset County Pension Fund and the £3.3bn Somerset Pension Fund have picked Local Pension Partnership Investment as their asset pool. This will bring LPPI’s assets under management to more than £40bn following Devon’s decision earlier this month.
Dorset Council said the decision to join LPPI was taken “after careful analysis and independent advice”.
Dorset County Pension Fund is one of the former partners of Brunel Pension Partnership. The government told Brunel and Access pension pools to cease operating, arguing that six pools instead of eight will lead to better outcomes for the UK economy.
Dorset has more than 80,000 members across more than 200 employers, including Dorset Council and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
Cllr Andy Todd, who is vice-chair of the pension fund committee, said:
“This is a positive step towards securing the long-term sustainability of the Dorset County Pension Fund. LPPI is a well-established, well-regulated investment pool with a strong track record of performance, advice, responsible investment and collaboration, and we are confident that this new partnership will deliver long-term benefits for our scheme members, their employers and the wider community.”
Attracting three pension funds so far is a win for LPPI, which had been one of the smaller asset pools before the government’s reforms.
Its chief executive Chris Rule said Dorset’s decision was the result of extensive due diligence, adding:
“With our existing partner funds, we’ll now be working through the next steps for new funds joining the pool.”
Somerset … noisily
Somerset
Somerset Pension Fund is another of Brunel’s former partners that has also now revealed it will work with LPPI.
Pension fund committee chair Councillor Simon Coles said the fund was very disappointed to hear in April that the government did not believe Brunel could meet the government’s ambitions and that Brunel funds would have to seek new pools.
“The Pension Fund Committee and officers of the Somerset Fund, and the other 9 Funds involved, had worked very hard to build Brunel into a successful pool and transition in excess of 95% of our Fund’s investments to Brunel. It feels much of this effort has now been wasted and we have to start our pooling journey again..”
September 30th was the final date for announcing decisions. This article by Sandra Woolf was written on September 30th for Mallowstreet
Avon, Buckinghamshire and Cornwall at the time were still to announce their new pooling partners. The Isle of Wight was due to join LGPS Central but had not yet reached a formal decision.
Further decisions (and an update IoW) had been reported by Sandra the previous week.
Another rock formation
My introduction to buses “down” there was “Hants & Dorset” which was split up before privatisation.
FirstBus today describe their operations there as “Wessex, Dorset & South Somerset”.
… and the older Wilts & Dorset buses were restored as part of that pre-privatisation recast and continued until quite recently, now part of Go South Coast.
I played a bit for Dorset & Wilts as a schoolboy rugby player. I think it was a sporting thing. Somerset were the enemy!
Shackleton, the England spinner used to play for Dorset and Wilts – cricket at Shaftesbury on a patch of land which is now a car park for Tesco.
The slow and dirty passed through Templecombe, taking trains from Bournemouth to the north when that was a holiday trip. My Dad took me to the station to watch the steam trains.
But it was the busses that could get up the hill to Shaftesbury, the trains couldn’t do that.