A Railway for Nature

What we’ve done 

Since 2023, we’ve partnered with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust to better understand the ecological value of our sites. With their expertise, we have already helped enhance the biodiversity at Buxton, Bolton, Workshop, Hebden Bridge, Swinton and St Helens Central. Through introducing wildflower planters, sensory planting, bird and bat boxes, bug hotels and community - led green spaces, we have helped connect people to nature while supporting local species. 

What’s next 

As we move forward, we will use three mechanisms to enhance biodiversity. These are: 

• Our community 

Providing our station volunteer groups with guidance, data, and information.

• Vegetation management

Improving contractual arrangements to deliver vegetation management plans that support nature recovery.

• Infrastructure projects

Embedding biodiversity into our project lifecycle 

By working with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, we have learnt that that greenspace available at stations is quite limited, but Northern is unique in the fact that it has a high footfall of local people that pass through the stations.  Our strategy is aimed at maximising the benefits of this position, by inspiring and informing locals to take action at home, creating a network of connections for locally important habitats whilst working with Network Rail, who maintain track vegetation to create ‘corridors for nature’ across our regions. By 2030 we aim to achieve 60 certified stations and over 5,000 “nature connections,” rising to over 30,000 by 2035.