Volunteers turn Dullingham station into a haven for village memories and wildlife

September 8, 2020

A volunteer has created a nostalgic wildlife haven at Greater Anglia’s rural Dullingham station on the Ipswich – Cambridge rail line.

Local resident and retiree, Sue Park, is taking the village on a ‘green journey’, getting them involved in wildlife friendly schemes at the station and even creating a small pond – believed to the first at a rail station in the country!

She has encouraged local people to donate their compostable waste to her so that she can use it to help improve the soil and some have even donated materials and flowers to help with the project.

Sue says: “I’ve planted lavender and foxgloves and installed some donated bird boxes and insect houses, so it was also important to create a source of water for the birds and insects to ensure they could thrive here. Now plants are growing in the pond and we even had some frogspawn in there.

“Thanks to a local farmer who donated four white butler sinks, we’ve also been able to put in more plants on the platform too.”

Sue plans to involve local people even more in the future with a project to create some mosaics at the station depicting local wildlife.

She says: “The station is really special to the people that live here. Many residents can remember their grandfathers working at the station – one who even campaigned to save the station during the Beeching era of closures.

“I found a Peace Rose growing here – many were planted after World War 2 and I wonder if it had a special meaning to someone. Another donated the bird bath from her late mother’s garden and I have planted Fuschias from my late father’s garden, so whenever we come here we are surrounded by memories and it is a lovely place to sit quietly and reflect.”

Greater Anglia’s Customer and Community Engagement Manager, Alan Neville, said: “We are very grateful to Sue and the community at Dullingham for the amazing work they are doing and as people return to the station for work and leisure they will notice the difference.

“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.”