Top Folk Festival Boosted by Free Rail-Bus Link
The East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership is to renew its sponsorship of a special rail-bus link for festival goers for a second year with the aim of encouraging more of those attending to travel by rail, helping the organisers to further extend their extensive green credentials.
Special Bus Link
One of the country’s top music festivals, Folk East takes place at Glemham Hall in August and the special bus service will link the recently restored Wickham Market Station (located in the village of Campsea Ashe) with the event offering free transport to those arriving and departing by rail.
The festival attracts several thousand people per day and with an increasing number travelling by train the free shuttle bus services will once again be doubled thanks to the support of the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership.
Environmentally Friendly
The bus-rail link further enhances the festivals environmentally friendly credentials; they currently hold a Suffolk Carbon Charter (Silver) for work on reducing their carbon footprint and once again will source 95% of the entire event infrastructure from Suffolk based companies, with around 90% of all the food sold on site Suffolk produced with all of the ales and ciders on sale also sourced from Suffolk producers.
Festival organisers are also working with Suffolk Groundworks to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill and will be sending compostable waste to a local bio digester. 2015 Runners up (highly commended) in the Greenest County Sustainable Tourism category award, Folk East is regarded as one of the top five folk based festivals in the UK.
Becky Marshall-Potter for Folk East said, “We are delighted to receive support from the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership, allowing us to double the number of buses from Wickham Market Station to the festival site. Each year the festival grows substantially and their support will help to reduce the number of vehicles using an already congested A12 and help to support our desire to be one of the greenest festivals in Europe.”
The East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership is an independent association which works closely with local authorities, volunteers and rail operator, Greater Anglia to both support and encourage use of the railways running between Ipswich and Lowestoft and Ipswich and Felixstowe.
Aaron Taffera, Community Rail Partnership Chair, added, “We are pleased to support Folk East again this year with what is becoming an increasingly popular link to the festival enabling many more of those attending the convenience of a dedicated bus link, travel in a more environmentally sustainable way and the opportunity to enjoy more of the beautiful Suffolk Countryside on their journey.”
Paul Oxley, Stakeholder Manager, Greater Anglia, said: “This is a great way for people to travel to the festival and we’re very pleased to be working with the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership again.”
Group Save Tickets
There are a number of options available to those coming to the festival by rail including Group Save tickets allowing up to a third off travel for groups between 3 and 9 with accompanying children priced at just £2, and for those travelling from within Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire, the Anglia Plus Rover ticket can also offer substantial savings.
Download the Rail-Bus Connection Timetable
The complete rail-bus connection timetable, more the 90 trains meeting the Folk East bus, is available for download.