Nexus and local community volunteers have teamed up to plant a tree at Cullercoats Metro station to help mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The plum tree was planted in a special ceremony attended by volunteers from the Cullercoats Collective, staff from Nexus and the High Sherriff of Tyne and Wear, Mr David Bavaird.
Huw Lewis, Customer Services Director at Nexus, said: “Metro is at the heart of the communities that it serves so we were delighted to join with the local volunteers in Cullercoats to plant a beautiful tree to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It was a wonderful ceremony to mark Her Majesty’s 70-year reign, and it was fantastic to see the way we have worked with the local community on this project. The Queen famously opened Metro in November in 1981, and she returned in April 2002 to open the Sunderland line. These Royal visits are a fantastic part of our heritage. The tree planting ceremony also marked the start of an exciting community-led project to transform this spare land next to Cullercoats Metro station into a vibrant public garden. Nexus made the site available to the Cullercoats Collective to create a local green space that the whole community can enjoy. This is another excellent example of the real benefits that a community project like this can bring to our network. It increases biodiversity at our stations and makes them really attractive gateways to their communities, as we play our full part in the region’s decarbonisation plans.”
The Jubilee Plum tree has been registered to be part of The Queen’s Green Canopy, a tree planting initiative run by Woodland Trust that was created to mark the Jubilee. This will create a network of individual trees and whole woodlands in honour of The Queen’s service and the legacy she has built.