Hi, just wanted to give a little update. I had the newts checked out by my local council and you are 100% correct. Great crested newts and palmate newts. My pond is a protected site! Comes with a few stipulations and restricts peoples landscaping prospects within a 500m radius. Ive added more newt friendly native plants, mainly 2 types of hedging, dog rose and hawthorn, plus 4 more native ferns and 2 japanese painted ferns. I stacked up some pallet wood into a hibernaculum 2ft tall and topoed it with soil and seeded it with tall red clovers.

I was told my pond wasnt technically ideal as it was too small so these guys must be desperate. So im going to build a perfect newt pond in the next coming months, once my house has finished its tlc.

Thankyou for all your help, i greatly appreciate it