Water Vole Project – Frays Farm Meadows

Frays Farm Meadows, a London Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve (SSSI), is one of London’s last remaining relatively unimproved wet alluvial grasslands. The meadows’ network of relic drainage ditches form a valuable part of the overall habitat mosaic, supporting a good population of water voles – a UK and London Biodiversity Action Plan species – as well as important invertibrate and bird habitat. Traditionally, management periodically cleaned out the ditches to maintain drainage, thus providing a variety of conditions and vegetation structure. However, the ditches have not been managed for a number of years and have been silted up and overgrown with vegetation, which has raised water levels. A new management programme will control water levels and enhance the ditches to maintain habitats suitable for water voles and other priority species as well as the plant community particularly associated with ditches.