News

Community Payback Working to make local communities better places to live

22nd Jun, 2009

In Staffordshire during 2008/09 in excess of 140,000 hours were carried out by offenders sentenced by the courts to Community Orders with Unpaid Work Requirements.  The work included cleaning church yards, litter removal, repairing park benches, redecoration of community centres and village halls, environmental work and community safety work.

Offenders are working to make local communities better places to live.  All projects combine hard work and the chance for the offender to develop life skills.  They help to reduce the risk of re-offending and also make our communities safer.

As part of the “Justice Seen Justice Done” Ministry of Justice campaign, members of a local community can nominate Community Payback projects in their local areas.  A clean up project commenced, on 18th June 2009, on an area of waste land at Elgood Lane, Goldenhill, Stoke on Trent.  This is an area of overgrown vegetation that has begun to attract flytyping.  It is planed to transform this area into an accessible site providing an amenity for the local community to enjoy.