A Good Neighbour

Our Liverpool Echo Environment Award

In April 2019 the New Ferry Butterfly Park team was awarded the Liverpool Echo Environment Award for the Community Impact category. This award was appropriately sponsored by Merseyrail, our neighbour.

 

The following week Dave Kyle, Merseyrail Electrics Facilities Manager, helped the park on its Opening Day by providing temporary railing up Howell Road to the entrance of the park, splitting up pedestrians from motorised traffic. Just as well, as unknown to Dave, works were happening on the line that day and a JCB came up the road with nearly 1,000 visitors expected that day.

 

The JCB arriving to work on the railway on the same day as the 2019 Open Day

 

For the day Dave put up a repurposed yellow metal framed Merseyrail poster display cabinet up with a photograph of the NFBP team receiving the award at the Gladstone Isla Conservatory, Stanley Park, Liverpool. This was put on the railings of the fence but slipped down during the year and water got in.

 

The Butterfly Park team receiving the Liverpool Echo Environment Award

Howard Gibson and Peter Miller, New Ferry Butterfly Park volunteers, designed a free standing waterproof frame which was put up outside the main gates of the park in Charlie’s Field. This will give passers-by information about the park’s attractions and forthcoming events. It was a challenge to put up. When digging holes for the uprights a bed of railway sleepers was discovered 50 cm down and the display had to be re-positioned several times so the uprights lay in the gaps between the sleepers.

The new display board outside the Butterfly Park

Merseyrail have helped us several times over the years on opening days, corporate work days, donations of primroses saved from railway works, supporting the planning application for a new a set of spectacular Silver Jubilee Gates and with this display cabinet. They are a good neighbour to the park.