Berrylands-based Citizen Zoo has raised £18,250 to bring water voles back to the Hogsmill River.

The rewilding group’s fundraiser smashed its original £12,000 target. The extra money will now help recruit a dedicated water vole officer to manage the scheme and scale the project beyond the Hogsmill River to the Thames.

The next two years will involve work to restore the water vole’s habitat and remove invasive American mink which predates them.

Water voles were once abundant in the UK’s rivers, but populations have declined by 97 per cent since the 1970s. They are the fastest declining mammal in the country.

Elliot Newton, bio-diversity officer at Kingston Council, said: “It’s been just a few years since the last water vole disappeared from the area, so they are still very much in living memory. It’s a recent extinction event.”

Sixty volunteers have been taught to carry out a basic water vole habitat survey. A heatmap of good, bad and average habitat across the catchment has been drawn up.

Water voles won’t be released until 2022. After that, Citizen Zoo will monitor their progress, as well as keeping an eye on any mink that enter the area. Mink will either be ethically killed or captured and relocated to safe wildlife sanctuaries.

Elliot said: “The most important thing about this is it demonstrates that a passionate community can come together and reverse local species extinctions. This is the first time a community has attempted a project like this in an urban river. It all comes down to local people with a vision. I hope we can replicate this across the UK.”