The Heyhouses Art & Wildlife Project was a designed to lift the image of St. Annes-on-the-Sea station and to encourage visitors.
This project has been ongoing since December 2016 with a range of community groups involved including, Friends of St Annes Stations and Park View 4 U. The project has seen 90 year 4 children get involved with uplifting their local station to highlight what St Annes has to offer to passengers using the train, they have brightened up the station with a 4.8 metre planter hosting a variety of herbs and plants suitable for wildlife such as bees to pollinate, bird boxes and bug houses for insects to inhabit the station, and vibrant artwork highlighting the ‘International Kite Festival, Beach houses and wildlife that can be seen at St Annes, all with the help of their local artist and Forest School leader Julie Norman.
Heyhouses came to the station on Friday to celebrate the completion of the project. CRL and the Friends of St Annes Stations set up a gazebo which displayed the project with pictures, the children’s pebbles, lighthouses, driftwood kites they had made, and their journey to Preston on the train with Community Rail Lancashire. 90 children came to the station along with their class teachers and head teacher followed by many parents who had come to the station to look at their children’s project work. The Town Crier and Town Mayor opened the event giving thanks to those involved and read a lovely letter from the ‘bugs’ that now live at the station thanking the children of Heyhouses for providing them with a home. 3 Year 4 children also gave speeches to thank all those involved for their help unveiling their artwork to family, teachers, and friends showing them around the station.
The community atmosphere was brilliant with lots of compliments to Heyhouses school for their fantastic level of engagement and enthusiasm in this project. Special thanks also go to those groups that made it possible through funding including the Department for Transport, the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, St. Annes Town Council, local rail operator Northern and Community Rail Lancashire.
A new leaflet has been produced that explains the why and hows of the project and this can be downloaded using the useful downloads links to the left of the screen.