Published on: Wednesday, 31 August 2022
Last updated: Wednesday, 31 August 2022
Free refillable water bottles were handed out to passengers at South Woodham Ferrers station during the recent heatwave.
Volunteer station adopters gave away 400 bottles on 11 August to help keep passengers hydrated, and to help the environment by discouraging the use of disposable plastic bottles.
The giveaway follows the installation of a new drinking water fountain at the station.
The fountain and water bottles were funded by the Essex & South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership and the Mister Gees Foundation, a charity which funds projects of benefit to the South Woodham Ferrers community.
Jayne Sumner, Rail Engagement Manager for the Community Rail Partnership, said, “The station adopters felt that a water dispenser would make a great asset to the station to help keep people hydrated on their journeys and help to reduce plastic waste, so we were really pleased to partner with the Mister Gees Foundation to help them achieve their wish.”
Alan Neville, Greater Anglia’s Customer and Community Engagement Manager, said: “We are very grateful to the Essex & South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership and the Mister Gees Foundation for facilitating funding for the new water fountain.
“We have water fountains at several other stations on our network which have already proved very popular with customers, and we hope people in South Woodham Ferrers enjoy their free drinking water, too, during this spell of hot weather.
“We care about the environment, so we are delivering a number of projects to improve our energy-efficiency and operate in a more sustainable manner - from installing LED lighting, to recycling food waste, to providing free electric car charging points.
“The fountain at South Woodham Ferrers supports this aim by helping to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfill and oceans from single-use bottles.”
In 2019, Greater Anglia became one of the first train operators in England to offer free water to passengers after installing water fountains at railway stations as part of a drive to reduce the number of single-use plastic bottles.
So far more than 300,000 bottles have been refilled across its network.