THE Upper River Windrush in the Cotswolds is one of the few places where water vole populations have expanded.

It is one of the few good news stories for the water vole in a report published by the Wildlife Trust which revealed that numbers generally have continued to fall, a trend attributed to habitat loss and the threat from mink.

The national partnership of Wildlife Trusts has launched a project called Water for Wildlife which aims to take forward wetland conservation including reversing the decline of the water vole.