Westerfield railway station’s station adopters organised the writing competition with the top prize being a trip to Kew Gardens on a Greater Anglia train.

The winner of the competition was 7-year-old Elliott Clarke who wrote ‘A Day in the Life of a Westerfield station bee’ which saw Elliott’s imagination go wild as the bee watched trains go by and visit the station’s wildlife garden.

The station’s team of volunteer adopters launched the contest and have also created a large wildlife garden alongside the station platform. The adopters also carry out work in the local area to raise awareness of the importance of conserving and protecting nature.

Sandy Burn is a volunteer station adopter at Westerfield station and led the project which saw a team plant hundreds of perennials, grasses and wildflowers over the 72-square metre site. A hexagonal planter was also built and installed by the team and is located on the platform and saw 1st Westerfield cubs plant herbs in it for local people to use. The wildlife garden also saw the installation of a permanent and eco-friendly water supply earlier this year. 

Information boards have also been installed in the garden as part of a partnership with the Suffolk Butterfly Conservation Trust and Friends of the Earth and will help people discover the types of bees and butterflies they spot.

The project’s overall aims are to create a haven for wildlife whilst improving the well-being of local people with funds provided by East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership, Community Rail Network and Westerfield Parish Council with in-kind support from Greater Anglia and the Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership.

The volunteer adopters have also recently finished a new additional wildlife area which features a theme of ‘Reuse, Recycle, Recover and Reduce waste’ and features dead hedges, log pyramids, raised Hugelkultur beds alongside a bug habitat to provide shelter for wildlife. Funding for this has been provided by East Suffolk Council as part of their Green Communities project and Westerfield Parish Council.

Sandy said: “We came up with the idea of a writing competition to raise awareness of the importance of bees in the local environment and to encourage conversation locally to help these fascinating creatures.

“We think that Elliot and our two runners-up – Jack and Austin – rose to the occasion with individual, entertaining and educational entries that really made us smile.

“Thank you to Greater Anglia, the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail partnership and Westerfield Parish Council for donation of the prizes which we hope the children will enjoy.”

Greater Anglia’s Customer and Community Engagement Manager, Alan Neville, said: “We are very grateful to Sandy and her fellow volunteers, Laura and Yvonne, for the amazing work they are doing at Westerfield.

“Wildlife-friendly projects at stations like this are helping the railway in East Anglia to lead the green revolution by being a much greener way to travel – and our new fleet of trains will contribute even more thanks to their more environmentally friendly features which reduce CO2 and particulate emissions in the region further still.”