Thetford Town Council’s Thetford in Bloom competition has seen ‘Friends of Thetford Station’ awarded the ‘Best Environmental Project’ for their wildlife garden which is located along the platform of Thetford station as well as for collecting rainwater and also their endeavours to protect the towns swifts and bats from habitat loss by putting in place nesting boxes at the old station building.

Greater Anglia‘s voluntary Station Adoption initiative has seen ‘Friends of Thetford Station’ involve local people to support their local station in order to benefit the community. The group have worked together for years and has transformed the platform by creating a substantial and beautiful wildlife-friendly garden alongside a fernery in the old customer toilet facilities.

Planning permission and a grant were recently given by Breckland Council for the ‘Friends’ to purchase six specifically designed swift boxes and worked with Network Rail to fit them at the top of the Victorian station building.

Over the past 25 years, an extreme decline in both swift and bat populations has taken place due to habitat loss with swifts now considered to be highly vulnerable.

The group has carried out the installation of six ‘day and night’ boxes which house the swifts through the summer months as well as bats throughout the year. Each one of the boxes features a nesting chamber for a pair of swifts alongside a recess in the back panel which allows bats to roost.

The group have also put a solar-powered swift call emitting device in order to better the chances of the boxes being used and hopes to establish a swift colony as the birds return to their nesting sites each year.

Lead volunteer, Fiona Rhind, said: “We recently became a Wildlife Friendly accredited station for the work we have done on the platforms, and we want to continually do more to show just what can be achieved in terms of greater biodiversity in an urban environment.

“At Thetford station, we’ve planted native hedges, established a wildflower area and installed 15 bird boxes – which we were delighted to see become home to blackbird and robin chicks this year.

“It’s wonderful that we can now provide a refuge for swifts and bats as well – as our native species need all the help they can get. We’re really grateful to Breckland Council, Greater Anglia and Network Rail for supporting us in our aims to do everything we can to support our local wildlife and we’re delighted to have been recognised for this work with a Thetford In Bloom award.”

Councillor Terry Jermy, Chairman, Thetford Town Council Amenities Committee, said: “We are delighted to see the return of the Thetford In Bloom awards and in particular, pleased to see the addition of two new categories – Environmental Project of the Year and Environmental Champion of the Year.

“The judges were very pleased to award first place to the Friends of Thetford Station in the Environmental Project category in recognition for their brilliant work locally.

“Judges noted the maintenance of the flower beds in the vicinity of the station that have been well looked after by the volunteers and provide an important food source for bees and other pollinators. The recently added swift boxes and facilities for rainwater collection were also appreciated by the judges.”

The station has also recently been given ‘Wildlife Friendly’ accreditation by Greater Anglia and Norfolk Wildlife Trust as recognition of the volunteer teams of ‘station adopters’ incredible work in creating a wildlife habitat at the station.

Greater Anglia’s Customer and Community Engagement Manager, Alan Neville, said: “I’d like to thank the volunteers at Thetford for the incredible work they are doing to support biodiversity locally and congratulate them on this well-deserved recognition.

“The railway in increasingly recognised as an important corridor for wildlife and thanks to initiatives like this, stations are becoming a vital part of that corridor which helps wildlife to move around the landscape and become more resilient to the effects of climate change and habitat loss.”

More East Anglian railway stations are becoming havens for local wildlife due to the amazing efforts of volunteers and just last year saw more than 6,800 square metres of railway land transformed into thriving wildlife gardens.

Greater Anglia has revealed following a recent survey, that station adopters have seen a large variety of creatures visiting their stations including butterflies, bees, slow worms, bats, foxes, deer and many varieties of birds with records showing more than 200 different species.

The rail operator has pledged the land to WildEast which is a nature recovery movement with a focus on restoring 20% of East Anglia back to nature by 2050 and comes alongside the rest of the rail industry promising to make stations throughout the country more sustainable.