Volunteers replanted five neglected railway stations — one has won a new national award for it. Tonight, more than 450 people sleep on the Kop

On the platform at Cardross, on the north bank of the Firth of Clyde, the flowerbeds sit in the gap between the fence and the track, and a steam train stands at the buffers with marigolds growing out of its boiler. Volunteers built the train, the boat and the barrel planters themselves. The beds around them carry vegetables, soft fruit and herbs, left for anyone passing through. 1

The Royal Horticultural Society has given its first Railway Stations in Bloom award to the Cardross Community Organic Garden, one of five station gardens the judges shortlisted. 23

Cardross station opened in 1858, and the gardens it was once known for had fallen into neglect over decades. 1 The group adopted the station in March 2022 through ScotRail's Adopt a Station programme, starting with ten volunteers. Almost twice that number now meet there, on Wednesdays, Fridays and the first Saturday of each month. 1

What they have put back mixes the useful with the unlikely: boat, train and whisky-barrel planters, replanted embankments, raised beds along the platform, and vegetables, soft fruit and herbs for the community to take. 1 "Since March 2022, every bit of the station that can be changed, has been changed," said Jane Connolly, who leads the volunteer group. Winters on the Clyde are hard on bedding plants, so the group chose hardy shrubs instead and ran windproofing along the shore side. 3

What I like best is the produce: grown on a working platform and left for whoever comes past. 1

The judges said they were "especially impressed by how active the group was in including different members of the community in the station's activities, from school children, Brownies to other volunteering and gardening groups". 3

Alresford, in Essex, had a drier problem. Volunteers cut through asphalt to make beds, and after summers that outran their watering, they built a dry garden along the lines Beth Chatto laid down at her own Essex garden, where plants grow in ground that had never been cultivated. 3

"It's transformed the centre of the village," said Frank Belgrave, the lead volunteer. Ten years ago the local paper called the station rundown. Residents now turn up with spare plants and compost, and Belgrave has watched honeybees, solitary bees, butterflies, hedgehogs and slowworms come back to the site. On a corner behind the old station house that had been used as a rubbish dump, he hopes to build a community hub and coffee shop. 3

Wylde Green, in Birmingham, cleared overgrown ground and planted it with pollinator-friendly species, making what the volunteers call a bee corridor, and now runs an annual butterfly count that keeps rising. Maghull, in Merseyside, put flowers in the ticket office window boxes and planted a woodland. Keynsham, in Somerset, went for succulents, which take a hot summer without flinching. 3

At Anfield this evening, more than 450 people will lay out sleeping bags on the Kop for the fourth Kip on the Kop, the sleepout run by the club's charity, the LFC Foundation. 4 Comedian John Bishop and actress Sue Johnston are taking part, with former Liverpool players including Chris Kirkland and Sammy Lee, and the women's team captain Niamh Fahey. 4

The first three sleepouts raised more than £220,000, and by Saturday morning this year's campaign had passed £79,000, with about £15,900 more added in Gift Aid. 5 The money pays for foundation sessions that help people who are homeless write CVs, practise interviews and find training and apprenticeships, and for Liverpool Homeless FC, whose five-a-side league for people affected by homelessness now runs 22 teams across Merseyside. 5

"We are safe on The Kop but the reality for people who are sleeping rough on the streets is that it is horrendous," said John Finnigan, who runs Liverpool Homeless Football Club. 4

Kirkland, who kept goal for Liverpool between 2001 and 2006, was forced to retire from football in 2016 by anxiety, depression and an addiction to prescription painkillers. "It took me 10 years to admit the truth," he said. He has said he stood on a roof in 2016, "not wanting to be here anymore", and he now tells anyone in that place: "You can't be embarrassed, and you can't be scared. You have to speak to someone." 4

Liverpool also runs Kicking Off Conversations, a matchday desk where supporters can talk to mental health specialists. 4 The sleepout is one night; the campaign page stays open until 26 October. 5

The Cardross volunteers meet on Wednesdays, Fridays and the first Saturday of the month, in blue high-vis waistcoats, and the group's site takes enquiries from anyone who wants to join. 1 ScotRail's Adopt a Station programme is how they got the station in the first place.

Donations to Kip on the Kop run until 26 October at the campaign page, and the LFC Foundation sets out what the money pays for. 5