In phase I of the Million Ponds Project we will create a network of 5000 new high quality ponds in England and Wales to bring a significant and lasting increase in freshwater biodiversity and water quality across UK landscapes.
The project will
* make 5000 new ponds in England and Wales providing, by 2012, over half of the ponds needed to reach the 2015 target for high quality pond creation under the new Pond HAP
* contribute to protecting and increasing numbers of BAP species
* start reversing a century’s decline in pond numbers and quality
* create sustainable networks of clean water
* create ponds that will be Priority habitats of European significance under the Habitats Directive
* help climate-proof our freshwater landscapes.
The plan after 2012 is to build upon this project so that, ultimately, the UK once again has at least one million ponds (not including garden ponds).
Number of ponds
Between 2009 and 2012 the aim is to create 5000 high quality ponds in England and Wales.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | TOTAL |
| England | 100 | 900 | 1600 | 1400 | 4000 |
| Wales | 20 | 150 | 530 | 300 | 1000 |
Pond Quality
Most current new ponds are not of high quality. Most are created with polluted inflows and many are stocked for angling. Such ponds are very unlikely to develop or sustain high biodiversity status.
To achieve high quality status, new ponds will be created with clean microcatchments with no polluted water coming in from surface run-off, drains or streams.
These microcatchments can be semi-natural land, the unfertilised rough of a golf-course or an arable field corner from which nutrient-enriched soil has been stripped. Our major target areas are places where new ponds can have a natural catchment.
This is obviously an extensive potential target area. So we are narrowing it down by placing ponds either in
- recognised pond 'hotspots' to achieve specific biodiversity benefits for Biodiversity Action Plan species and high quality Habitat Action Plan ponds
- or in clean micro-catchments, scattered across many landscapes, to protect and increase the diversity of freshwater species at landscape level.
