A Sainsbury’s forecourt has launched a fuel saving initiative developed by four school boys.

The four boys, 13-year-old Hector Kelly, Max Evans, Patrick Bamforth and Jaydon Softly are all pupils at Newland House School, Waldegrave Park in Twickenham, and  have been working on a project to help reduce UK carbon emissions by encouraging motorists to check their tyre pressure when at the petrol station.

The boys developed their initiative after their findings revealed that if 400 motorists check their tyre pressure regularly it could help them reduce fuel consumption, and save 43 tonnes  of CO2 and 19,000 litres of fuel a year.

Sainsbury’s begins the trial of the campaign this month at its store at St Clare’s, Hampton, and will monitor it over the next six months.  It has also arranged for the boys to spend time with the designers behind their poster campaign so they can fully understand the design process for retail from the experts.

Richard Crampton, head of petrol at Sainsbury’s, said: “We’re always on the look out for innovative ways to help our customers and protect the environment.  So when we heard about this we thought it was well worth a try. It’s great to be able to help take their experiment from the classroom to our customers’ cars.”

Barry McGovern, departmental head - design technology, at Newland House School, said: “I am delighted with the outcome of this project.  It is the culmination of 18 months hard work and although the boys are only 13 their project has the potential of helping to reduce CO2 levels both now and in the long term in the UK.”

The campaign has also been highly commended by local MPand Cabinet Minister Vince Cable who said: “In these tough times it’s really encouraging to see big business embrace ideas from young minds in this way.  It demonstrates that young people have so much potential and that there are businesses out there that are willing to try out new ideas.  I hope that Sainsbury’s customers in Hampton will get behind this very worthwhile initiative.”

Earlier this year the boys won a British Science Association Silver CREST award and they were runners up in the under 16 category at the National Science and Engineering Competition.

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