Revive a small pond - help, please!

[SleepBecomesHim321]

I've inherited a small pond-linered pond on an allotment. It's a lined dug hole as opposed to a pre-formed pond. Very overgrown (with what?) and about 3in water at deepest point.

What do I need to do to make it attractive to wildlife (obvs frogs are the dream)? Clear it all out? No sign of life at present.... pic attached.

Thanks in advance.

3 in of water is very shallow, is that the most it will take or is it because it is half empty (hard to tell from the picture).

How long have you had it? And how long has it been there? Frogs can take a while to come, although with a pond that small they may be more reluctant if there are other larger water sources available, so you may want to seed it with frog spawn (I know they say that ideally you shouldn't but I've done it with great success in the past.

For the time being I would just get all the plants out, divide them and put them back in.

No expert just trying to help, I do my wildlife garden by intuition/trial and error. Ponds often look a bit rubbish in winter, panic not. Tug on the grassy stuff - if there are lots of roots filling the water chop it about in half to create space for the water. I would then trim and remove the dry grassy looking stuff. Then gently fish out the dead leaves/algae, heap them on the grass next to the pond for a couple of days so the bugs can crawl back across into the water, then add to off to the compost heap. Top up with water, add some rocks around the edge (to protect the liner and provide cover for frogs/bugs).
Then wait and watch what happens this year.
You will then have a good idea of what plants are already in there and what comes to visit. It is very shallow but if you keep it filled then wildlife will use it, they like cover so maybe leave the grass on one side at least 6 inches or longer. Fingers crossed for you!

3 inches of water? So basically a puddle. I would thin out the plants that are in there, if there is a lot of algae in there get a small bundle of barley straw in there which will clear it up quite a lot. After thinning out the plants and tidying up around the edge I would just wait and see what happens as we move into spring. Does it have sloping sides? Maybe get an old roof tile to use as a little ramp so any little critters have an easy way in/out. If you have a few old bricks, the ones with the holes in you can put them near the edge as a handy hide hole for anything that decides to live there.