A NEW project officer has been appointed to take the wetlands restoration scheme forward in Longdon and Eldersfield.

Brian Smith, of Severn and Avon Vales Wetlands Project, is planning to visit about 80 farmers and people living in or near the floodplains over the next few weeks to try and convince them to join the scheme.

The idea is to restore the drained wetlands to their former glory and create more natural habitats for wildlife such as otters, winter wildfowl and water voles, whose numbers have dropped dramatically over the past ten years.

Longdon and Eldersfield Marshes, south west of Upton, were systematically drained for about 60 years, up to the 1930s.

The conservation scheme was launched nearly two years ago but became bogged down in bureaucracy after various different organisations got involved, including English Nature, the Environment Agency and the Internal Drainage Board.

Mr Smith's job is to find funding to pay for the restoration and work out the practicalities of the scheme with the landowners.

"The biggest challenge we face is overcoming the reticence of farmers to restore their land to wetlands," said Mr Smith.

"I need to persuade farmers that there is good economic sense in going for the restoration and that it makes good farming sense." Group leader for the Malvern and Worcester RSPB, Garth Lowe, said the Longdon wetlands used to be a good area for birds before they were drained.

"Now we only get a few curlews and maybe lapwings there," he said.

"They are all endangered species. The amount of land drainage that's gone on across the country is incredible." .

Mr Lowe said that Ottmoor, near Oxford, was recently restored and the lapwing numbers have already increased fourfold.

"Not only that, but when you provide wetland, you provide stop off areas for migrating birds, like a petrol station for re-fuelling," he said.