A huge community effort has transformed a Norfolk village pond - 12 months into a five-year plan to eradicate invasive weeds and bring back native wildlife.
The SWAMP (Sustainable Work At Morston Pond) initiative has harnessed a team of more than 40 volunteers to restore the village pond in Morston, near Blakeney.
The group aims to create a healthier environment for wildlife, but also to improve the pond as a natural space for the community to enjoy.
Their main challenge is to get rid of crassula helmsii, also known as swamp stonecrop or New Zealand pigmyweed - an invasive plant which forms dense, impenetrable mats around the edges of shallow water, preventing any other life from growing.
But the volunteers - with advice from university ecologists and support from parish and county councils - have already made striking progress in clearing the aggressive weed.
The SWAMP group was instigated by villagers Jackie Howard and Jill Tibbetts, and is chaired by Sandra Morris, a retired administrator from an architect's practise.
"People in the village were thinking we had to do something about this pond, it was completely blanketed with this invasive weed," she said.
"Not everyone in the village can get into the pond to dig out weed, but people have come along to cut back brambles or pollard the willows, or even just being interested and saying 'thank you for doing this, well done'. There is a certain amount of village pride in it.
"None of us are ecologists. We are just learning as we go along.
"It is a work in progress, but if we gradually continue to clear it then other non-invasive plants will naturally start growing again and the higher diversity of plant life will then attract the wildlife, insects, and invertebrates."
The project began by securing a £2,500 grant from the Norfolk Coast Partnership, which paid for specialist equipment to "scrape" the top layer of the pond at the start of last December.
To stop the crassula returning, regular community action days were organised - including one inspired by the King's Coronation - and the plants were buried in trenches a metre deep to prevent the seeds growing or being redistributed by wildlife.
The pond now has a wider range of native aquatic plants, and is home to breeding moorhens, toads, dragonflies and butterflies - with hopes that more species will follow.
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