Community Payback Team in Totternhoe
Following on from our feature on Community Payback in our Winter 2010 edition, Totternhoe Parish Council contacted us to tell us about their very positive experience with the scheme.
Peter Tasker, Chairman of Totternhoe Parish Council had this to say. “Totternhoe Parish Council has a large piece of land on our Church End Allotments, which for over 40 years was rented out to a resident of the village who kept sheep, chickens and other small livestock on the land.
When the resident sadly passed away in late 2009, the Parish Council was left with numerous barns, sheds and rubbish that needed clearing from the land. So, we approached Bedfordshire Probation Trust to see if they could help us with this type of clearance work.
We had a visit from the Trust’s local Community Payback project manager in August 2010, who looked at the land and agreed that this was exactly the kind of project the Trust could help us with. It was agreed that work would start in September, with a team visiting once or twice a week.
‘They worked very hard…’
The team consisted of offenders who had been sentenced by the courts to carry out Community Payback – unpaid work for the benefit of the local community. They all worked very hard to clear the site by knocking down the barns, burning the timber, digging up large pieces of concrete and putting rubbish into piles for removal from the site by the Council’s contractors. The team worked under the control of a Probation Team supervisor.
The work was finished by the end of January 2011, and we are very satisfied with all that they have done. We now have the team working on other projects in the village to clean up footpaths, paint recreation ground equipment and other similar work.
We feel that Community Payback teams are of real value to communities, and that a little praise goes a long way in helping them with their rehabilitation.”
Community Payback in your community?
Local projects looking to benefit from Community Payback can be community based or for the good of a charity or charitable organisation.
For more information on how to nominate a Community Payback project, go to the Bedfordshire Probation website, or phone them on 01582 735153.
Find out what else is going on in Totternhoe – visit their website here