A rare grasshopper is set to make its long-awaited return to the Norfolk Broads next weekend after an absence of 85 years.

The large marsh grasshopper was last recorded in the Broads in 1939, after its populations declined due to to changing land use and habitat loss.

But now Britain’s biggest grasshopper is set to return to its former haunts after Natural England granted permission for captive-bred grasshoppers to be released in the Wheatfen Nature Reserve in Surlingham, outside Norwich.

The species has already been successfully reintroduced to sites in west Norfolk as part of the Hop of Hope project, led by the social enterprise Citizen Zoo, alongside partners Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Natural England.