Beavers are set to be reintroduced into the wild in Cornwall as part of a radical plan to reduce flooding.

After being hunted to extinction several hundred years ago, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and local farmers Chris and Janet Jones from Woodland Valley Farm are bringing Eurasian beavers back to the county.

The project intends to show that beavers can help create new wildlife habitat, make our streams cleaner and crucially reduce flooding.

The proposed site is a specially fenced area upstream of Ladock village, just outside Truro, which has suffered from severe flooding in recent years.

Two adult beavers will be introduced to a purpose-built, five acre enclosure that contains prime beaver habitat and a stream that flows into the Tresillian River.

Scientists from the University of Exeter have been studying the stream for over a year now, and universities will study the before and after impacts of the beavers, something that has never been done on this scale in such an intensively farmed landscape.

The project will build on research from other reintroductions in the UK and Europe, putting Cornwall on the global map.

The results will help find out if this long-lost species could once again become part of the Cornish landscape and help combat flooding in a natural way.

Frank Howie, of Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said: "Cornwall Wildlife Trust has been interested in re-introducing beavers to the county for several years.

"Successful re-introduction could help to reduce flooding problems whilst certainly creating new habitats for wetland wildlife.

"We are truly excited to be involved in bringing beavers back to Cornwall.

"It is a once in a life-time event and we hope everyone will support our Crowdfunding campaign to make this happen.”

Professor Richard Brazier, from the University of Exeter, said: "From measuring how much water runs through the stream during heavy rainfall, to recording pollution, the data collected before and after will show the true impacts of the beavers once they’ve been introduced.

"That’s what makes this project unique in the UK. The Woodland Valley Farm site is the perfect location and scale to show how effective beavers are at creating lots of environmental benefits and crucially whether their activity could reduce Ladock’s flooding problems.”

Chris Jones, a farmer at Woodland Valley, said: "I can’t wait to get the beavers on the farm and watch what they do.

"The site at the moment has one pond, the stream, a young even-aged tree plantation and not a great variety of plants – but the beavers could transform it into a truly natural wetland oasis.

"I’m really hoping the amount of wildlife and wetland increases.”

Beavers build dams to create new ponds and dig water channels to feel safe when they are close to water, as it allows them to move around their territory and get food.

Beavers are vegetarian and eat mainly grass and leaves during summer and twigs and bark in winter.

Creating more wetland like this enables the land to hold back more water, so during heavy rainfall water flows more slowly into rivers, which helps to prevent them overflowing and bursting their banks.

Beavers also have an impressive effect on other wildlife, animals such as frogs, newts and toads, as well as fish, birds and bats, all benefit from having beavers around.

At an enclosed site where beavers were reintroduced in Devon the number of frog spawn clumps went from 10 to 580 over five years, aquatic insect species increased almost three-fold in just one year and the number of different bat species feeding at the site increased.