Working in Partnership

Successful partnerships are important to us. The rail industry is split into different companies for infrastructure, trains and maintenance. As an industry we need to work together to deliver a sustainable transport system.

Northern has the best-developed partnership and community programmes of any rail operator in Britain. If you want to find out about our work with our partners and our way forward please read our community strategy. Our Environmental Sustainability Strategy will run alongside these programmes.

We are setting up projects with many organisations. We will keep this page updated as the projects happen but here are a few examples:

• working with Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) on a climate change campaign (www.gmpte.gov.uk)
• working with Carplus to see if we can use car clubs at stations (www.carplus.org.uk)
• working with Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), the Department for Transport (DfT) and local authorities to develop integrated travel at Hebden Bridge, Hazel Grove, Chapeltown and Accrington
• working with Lancashire County Council and Metro (West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive) to develop ecostations, like the one at Accrington (see below).

Accrington Ecostation

The aim of this project is to show how new, environmentally friendly building techniques can be used in the design and running of a railway station.
We are working with Lancashire County Council, Network Rail, the East Lancashire Community Rail Partnership and Hyndburn Borough Council to build our first Ecostation.

We want:

• to ensure the design and running of the new station will help to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions
• to design a building that goes beyond current building regulations and will achieve an excellent BREEAM rating (Building Research Establishment: Environmental Assessment Method: this works out the environmental performance of a building)
• to use locally sourced and recycled materials to build the station - for example, building with local recycled stone and using sheep's wool as insulation
• to see if we can generate power on site to use in the station building and car park, and/or to use a 'green electric' supplier
• to look at the effect of climate change on the building and to make sure it will withstand extremes of weather in the future
• to work with the local community to share the use of the new building.