Volunteers Recognised for Brightening up East Suffolk Stations

Greater Anglia has recognised volunteers in East Suffolk who have been working with the train operator to help care for their local rail stations.

At the train operator’s annual Station Adoption Awards held in Ipswich, the best achievements of the last 12 months from amongst its 330-strong team of volunteer station adopters across its network were formally recognised.

Great effort and dedication was evident at all adopted stations by the volunteers, who work with Greater Anglia to improve their local stations for the benefit of the community.

Westerfield

Westerfield station adopter, Sandy Burn, received the Judges’ Special Award for her years of dedication to the gardens that run along the station platform.

For seven years, Sandy Burns has led the transformation of Westerfield station’s gardens with exceptional dedication and vision. Starting alone, she cleared and revitalized the 72-square-metre, overgrown site, creating pollinator-friendly gardens that delight passengers and local people.

Later joined by fellow adopters, Yvonne Maynard and Mary Pluquet, she completed the final planting and inspired community involvement – from local cubs and church groups to environmental events and exhibitions. Her amazing work has included making homes for solitary bees, holding a fete dedicated to environmental awareness, creating an exhibition celebrating the history of Westerfield station, and being featured on the BBC’s Gardener’s World programme.

Under Sandy’s leadership, the station has earned many accolades, including the DEFRA Bees’ Needs Champion 2023 and Bee Friendly Trust Award 2024.

Halesworth

Adopters at Halesworth received the Best Station Transformation Award. Christopher and Fiona Fletcher were recognised for the huge amount of work they did to support Railway 200 celebrations and create stunning floral displays.

Lowestoft

Lowestoft station won Best Medium Station in recognition of the efforts by adopters Jacqui Dale, Andy Swann and Tim Miller, in partnership with the Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership and Lowestoft Men’s Shed to create an attractive station with colourful planting displays and window boxes.

Brampton

The adopter team at Brampton were the winners in the category Best Tubs and Hanging Baskets. Kim and Glynn Buck are the East Suffolk Lines longest serving adopters at its most rural station. They cycle to the station with water on-board (there’s no water source at the station) making sure their platform flower tubs always get the water they eed.

Woodbridge and Darsham

Woodbridge was Highly Commended for Best Tubs and Hanging Baskets and Darsham was Highly Commended for Best Station Transformation and

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. Station adopters work with Greater Anglia and, on some branch lines, also with the local community rail partnership, to bring about improvements or care for gardens and floral displays to benefit local wildlife and make stations more welcoming.

Greater Anglia provides funding 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 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 beautiful and inventive gardening projects and station presentation improvements.

Over the 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.