THIRSTY visitors to Belle Vue Park in Newport can now fill up their water bottles at a new water fountain.

Newport City Council installed the fountain on Wednesday, dubbed National Refill Day as part of a national campaign urging people to ditch single-use plastic bottles in favour of more sustainable alternatives.

Leader of Newport City Council, Cllr Debbie Wilcox, said: “Last year I put forward a motion to actively reduce the amount of single use plastic we use as an authority and to encourage others to follow suit.

“This is new refill station is an important step in ensuring easy access to drinking water in Newport and therefore support people to use their own refillable containers.

“Locating this fountain within the park will complement the growing number of stations across the city within shops, businesses and council buildings – all of which can be easily found on the handy refill app.

“We are now looking at other possible locations and plans are being put in place for more refill stations in Newport.”

The new fountain is located between the pavilion and the play area in Belle Vue Park, and is the first to be specially installed by the council.

Cllr Debbie Harvey was joined by Hannah Blythyn AM to unveil the new refill station.

“A year ago I announced the Welsh Government’s commitment to become a ‘Refill Nation,’" Ms Blythyn said. "At that time, Wales had [fewer] than 10 refill stations. Today there are over 1,000 refill stations across Wales.

“Increased availability of refill stations or water fountains is helping to reduce the number of single use plastic bottles ending up in our marine and aquatic environments disrupting our natural environment. This is vital for delivering sustainability and achieving our well-being goals for Wales.”

And Hannah Osman, Refill campaign co-ordinator for Wales, said: "It's amazing to see how quickly Newport has embraced the Refill Campaign.

"The new water fountain installed by Newport City Council and launching to celebrate National Refill Day just shows how seriously the people of Newport want to sort out the plastic pollution in their community.

“Every time we refill a re-usable bottle we save our own money and the planet’s resources, and all those individual refills add up to a huge impact. Our Refill Local Champion has great ambitions for Refill Newport and I am excited to see the scheme develop."