East Suffolk Station Adopters Recognised at Awards Event
Train operator Greater Anglia has recognised volunteers across the region who have been working to help care for their local rail stations at its annual Station Adopter Awards event.
The awards feature the best achievements of the past 12 months from amongst its 330-strong team of volunteer station adopters who work with Greater Anglia and the region’s Community Rail Partnerships to improve their local stations for the benefit of the community.
Great effort and dedication by volunteers at all adopted stations was evident; particularly impressive progress or initiatives were chosen from across 11 categories including best station, best adopter group, environmental and innovation award, and community involvement award. Along the East Suffolk Lines several stations and adopters were recognised.
Station adopter volunteers Sandy Burn, Yvonne Maynard and Mary Pluquet received the Environmental and Innovation Award for their work to transform Westerfield station into a thriving wildlife haven; this included using innovative techniques such as dead-hedging, hügelkultur planters and the creation of homes for solitary bees. Their work was previously featured on BBC TV’s Gardeners’ World.
Saxmundham was highly commended in the same category; the adopters team developed a large area of the station for wildflowers to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Woodbridge and Halesworth were both highly commended for the category Best Small Station.
Special recognition was also given to a particular East Suffolk Lines adopter team which will be the focus of an upcoming story.
Alan Neville, Greater Anglia’s Customer and Community Engagement Manager, said,
“We are so grateful to our amazing team of station adopters for everything they are achieving at their stations – and their work is loved and appreciated by the community too.
“The adopters know their stations and the needs of their community well and we are happy to support their aims through small grants and facilitating improvements.
“I would like to thank them for everything they do to help make their stations welcoming for passengers and a real asset to the community.”
Greater Anglia’s Station Adoption scheme enables individuals or groups to adopt their local railway station and contribute to its use and welfare for the benefit of their community. Funding is providing by Greater Anglia and in some areas by local Community Rail Partnerships to help station adopters cover the costs of small projects, such as the creation of station gardens and/or to purchase materials to help improve the station environment.
The voluntary scheme, which predecessor Anglia Railways introduced in 2003, built on similar initiatives elsewhere in the UK, to improve lines of communication between train operators and station users, but extended it to involve station adopters in playing an active role in keeping stations looking good – initially through gardening projects and station presentation improvements.
Over the past 20 years, adopters have expanded their activities to encompass wildlife-friendly initiatives, creative community art projects, local promotion of the railway and participation in station ‘health checks’, as well as being the eyes and ears of their station and encouraging links between the station and local communities.