The Heart of England Community Rail Partnership (Heart CRP) has, in collaboration with Network Rail Central route, Friends of Lapworth station, E H Smith Builders Merchants and Lapworth Primary School, installed a new bug hotel at Warwickshire station.
The lavish, comprehensive accommodation, which is capable of housing a wide variety of bugs and insects, is now situated next to platform 2 and forms part of the new Wild Rails initiative.
The Wild Rails initiative, which is supported by Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, aims to boost biodiversity, as well as support local school environmental education through interactive and free curriculum-based activities along the Leamington Spa to Birmingham Moor Street railway line.
Sarah Davison from Heart CRP, said:It is wonderful to see how enthusiastic the students have been to contribute to a project in their local area.
Having the opportunity to use the Lapworth community land from Network Rail has meant we could be much more ambitious with this new biodiversity installation. I'm hoping the local bugs will approve of their new residence!
Students in the local area are encouraged to vote on what installation they would like to see at their local station, with more projects set to follow in the coming months.
Fraser Pithie, communities manager for Network Rail Central route, said:I’m pleased we have been able to put this piece of land to good environmental use, and what better way to use it than to support the local community, and particularly children with their environmental education.
The land around the railway is home to a richly diverse variety of species and we do everything we can to protect it so we’re really keen to support these types of projects.
We hope students will benefit from this new community area by learning more about biodiversity and the railway at the same time.
