Cymraeg

Community Payback Community Payback – how to get involved

In Dyfed Powys Probation Trust, over 69,000 hours of Community Payback are completed every year by offenders on a community sentence. This equates to approximately £365,000 of free labour provided to local communities as offenders pay back for the crimes they have committed.

Community Payback projects range from litter removal to clearing dense under growth, and environmental projects through repairing and redecorating community centres or removing graffiti. Offenders usually work as part of a team, monitored by a supervisor, and will work all day with short breaks, although there are some opportunities for individual placements.

To be considered your project must meet the following criteria
• It must benefit the local community
• It must not take paid work away from others
• No one must make a profit from the work
• It must be challenging and demanding
• It must be worthwhile and constructive
• Offenders must be seen to be putting something back into the community.

The Community Payback team will assess the project for suitability and for health and safety implications.

Once the work has been completed a plaque will be displayed with the Community Payback logo, if appropriate. This will indicate where offenders have positively contributed to improving a neighbourhood.

Anyone can nominate a project, so, if you are an individual, member of a club, community group, faith group or voluntary organisation and have a project that fits the criteria above, please complete this form: ...."NOMINATE A PROJECT"

or call your local probation office on telephone number(s):

Brecon Office – 01874 614150
Newtown Office – 01686 611900
Carmarthen – 01267 222299
Llanelli – 01554 773736
Haverfordwest – 01437 762013
Aberystwyth – 01970 63646

Llanelli The unpaid work projects in Llanelli have ranged from litter picking, where more than 300 bags of rubbish have been cleared from Llanelli Beach, over 110 bags of rubbish in Felinfoel, as well as many more bags of rubbish from the Sustrans Cycle Path and Morfa, to clearing gardens for the elderly through the Age Concern Gardening Scheme.

Other projects that offenders have undertaken include painting St Paul’s Family Centre in Bigyn, clearing vegetation at Old Road Cemetery, painting Llansaint Village Hall and working in Scope Charity Shop in Stepney Street.

Elderly Citizen’s Hall – Llangennech, Llanelli
The Hall was given a new lease of life with the help of offenders who redecorated the exterior and interior, including installing a fitted kitchen donated by a local branch of MFI.

St David’s Church – Llandewi Velfrey, Pembrokeshire
St David’s Church in Llandewi Velfrey has been smartened both inside and out. The church warden wrote: “The service has made an excellent contribution towards maintenance of a beautiful listed building. The supervisor and the offenders who worked with him were keen, motivated, helpful and several were highly skilled. Thank you very much it really has made a difference.”

Powys The unpaid work projects in Powys have ranged from building raised beds for the patients to grow vegetables in the Community Garden at Ystradgynlais Hospital to repairing furniture and repainting the music room in Penrhos Youth Centre. Elderly residents have benefited from the gardening scheme in Brecon and offenders have worked with Communities First in the Penrhos Estate clearing fly-tipped rubbish from the estate.

Offenders have also been painting bollards and litter-picking in Ystradgynlais town centre. In Radnorshire projects have included revamping Knighton Church in Wales School and Howey Primary School in Llandrindod Wells, sprucing up inside and out the respite home for the Bracken Trust in Llandrindod and redecorating Pales Quaker meeting centre, Llandegley.

Y Dolydd, Llanfyllin, Powys
The grounds at Y Dolydd Workhouse in Llanfyllin have been given a significant make-over. One of the Trustees wrote “The organisation of the project has been first-class, and the supervisors have been extremely helpful and flexible in overseeing and managing a wide range of tasks. The offenders have done an outstanding job in clearing the site – parts of which were very overgrown and in cutting hedges, painting railings, clearing ditches etc has enabled us to move our restoration project forward sooner than expected. The Community Work Team have done a splendid job and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all the work they have done.”

 

Ceredigion Unpaid work projects in have been undertaken across the whole of Ceredigion and have ranged from smartening up Aberporth Seafront, painting the benches and railings, painting & decorating Aberporth Community Centre, smartening up Bethania Chapel in Cardigan, revamping the interior and exterior of Aberaeron Memorial Hall and planting a garden at Cwmpadarn Primary School to clearing the graveyards of Llanwenog Chapel and Llanfihangel y Cruedd Chapels.

Painting Bethania Chapel, Cardigan

The elderly of Ceredigion have also benefited through garden maintenance with 35 gardens being done through Help the Aged and the Housing Department.

Primrose Hill Cemetery, Ceredigion
Primrose Hill Cemetery in Llanbadarn Fawr was allocated via Ceredigion County Council a further plot of land adjacent to the original cemetery. The entrance to this land has been cleared and a stoneclad block work wall has been built and several concrete bays have been created to hold bins. This work was undertaken by a group of offenders on Unpaid Work Orders supervised by Dyfed-Powys Probation Area.

We cannot do this without your help! We need to know about projects you think we could work on.
You can e-mail us at the following address:
dppcommunity.payback@dyfed-powys.probation.gsi.gov.uk

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