SHIELDING his eyes against a bright autumn sun, Dave Hedges looked across the rutted farmland and outlined his vision of a natural paradise for bird watchers, ramblers and even the occasional loving couple out for a Sunday stroll.

Dave, a senior site manager for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, is the man in charge of transforming west Canvey marshes into a 290-acre wetland habitat.

It is major project which, when completed, will incorporate four kilometres of nature trails and three playing fields open for public use, as well as hopefully attracting and maintaining a new rare bird population on the island.

Despite few obvious changes since the RSPB bought the marshes in 2006, Dave is delighted with the progress being made towards fulfilling those goals.

He said: “Although it might seem to the public we haven’t done much yet, the wheels have been in motion ever since we obtained the land.

“There have been a series of planning hurdles to negotiate, but now we have planning permission we can start to move on.”

For Dave, the first step in moving on has been to investigate rumours the marshes may be a hotspot for unexploded Second World War bombs During the war, Canvey was bombed heavily by German pilots trying to avoid anti-aircraft fire over London, or jettisoning unused ordnance on their way home from the capital.

Many of those bombs fell on the marshes, a fact confirmed by the maps of wartime air raid officers. To quell any fears the RSPB have spent £50,000 on a ex-military team which specialises in unexploded bomb detection.

Using equipment designed to measure disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by metal objects buried deep in the ground, workers for EOD Contracts have been scanning the land for bombs and other “anomalies” for the past six weeks.

David Hill, operations manager for the contractors, said his men were currently walking between 12 to 14 miles each day, carrying equipment which weighs about 12kg.

He said: “What we are doing at the moment is a detailed surface scan. If we find anything we think is worth investigating further, like suspected ordnance, we will dig down to it.

“Ironically, it’s German technology we’re using!”

Using the detailed maps produced by the company, in combination with documents detailing wartime activity in Canvey, Dave Hedges is confident no stone, or bomb, will be left unturned.

His message is that safety is of paramount importance.

He said: “We want to stress we are not just rushing into anything. We are doing it carefully and properly.

“We know there may be bombs here, and we know there were anti-aircraft guns stationed nearby and their shells may have dropped on the land.

“That is why we are doing all this to make sure it is safe.”

Following an amateur archaeologist’s warning a nature reserve on the marshes could destroy the site of a Roman settlement, Dave was also keen to point out the benefits of the survey.

He said: “I don’t want anybody to be under the impression we are squashing archaeological sites.

“The scanning could detect pottery and bricks as well as bombs and can be used for archaeological finds as well.

“We could well discover something new.”