EXTRA cash is being made available to prevent water voles becoming extinct in Hillingdon.

Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust has secured funding to conserve the single water vole population in the Colne Valley.

The trust has a Rivers and Wetlands Project, which includes conserving water voles and managing the many fisheries across the Valley.

Research shows water voles are now restricted to one area, Frays Farm Meadows, west of Uxbridge.

The new funding, some of it from the National Lottery, will enable the trust to survey the wider Valley, identify habitat and, at the same time, control North American mink, the primary predator of water voles.

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There is another population of water voles in the Chess Valley, a tributary of the Colne which joins at Rickmansworth. The trust hopes to link up the two populations.

The trust’s project also aims to integrate the many fisheries across the Colne Valley, most of which are fished by private angling clubs.

The project will balance satisfying anglers while and increasing nature conservation.

MORE than 40,000 new trees are on their way to parks, playgrounds, estates, schools and community spaces across London as part of the Mayor’s ambition to make London a National Park City.

Projects in 21 London boroughs include the planting of 1,500 trees to create a new woodland in Hillingdon, opening the site to the public for the first time.