Offenders transform Ashington park

Posted by The Journal on Mar 18, 09 02:10 PM in News

A community payback project in Ashington has been hailed a success for boosting attendance rates among offenders.

Instead of tasks such as litter-picking or removing graffiti, unpaid workers have transformed the lakeside of the Queen Elizabeth II Park as part of their community order.

Queen Elizabeth II Park

Spending a day on the construction project, I worked with a group of seven offenders to improve disabled access within the park.

The aim of the project is to create a training area that disabled members of the Wansbeck and Cramlington Angling Club could easily access in their wheelchairs.

Our first task was to shovel and wheel-barrow stones on to the area that had been built out into the water, from the lakeside.

The platform was then flattened and levelled for ground guards to be laid in preparation for paving the area.

Work was physically demanding and involved heavy manual labour in order to get the platform near to completion by 3pm.

Unpaid work supervisor Frank Celino said: "In my experience, the attendance goes up and the breaches go down on a project like this one because there is something constructive for people to do.

"Many offenders don't like doing the mundane jobs like litter-picking and get a lot more from something like this.

"They also learn new social skills like team-building and problem solving."

The initiative comes as part of a new partnership between the angling club and the Northumbria Probation Area and is due to be completed this month.

Northumbria Probation Service quality assurance manager, John Ball, said: "This project started in September 2008 and has taken 1,400 Community Payback hours to date and will require a further 300 to complete the work.

"The building of access roads, pathways and angling platforms has involved demanding physical, creative and problem solving work.

"The offenders have benefited from acquiring employment related skills and developed an understanding and empathy for the problems facing the beneficiaries.

"The work is visible, raises their self-esteem and significantly this type of project increases compliance with the Court Order.

"Offenders have asked to attend extra days, some on completion of their orders have even worked as volunteers with the angling club. This has been a win win project for all involved."

One offender working in the group, who did not want to be named, said: "When you are litter-picking you are still doing something for the community. But you pick it up and it's back there again the next day.

"With this project you can see that you have done something that is going to last for a long time.

"It really helps other people and it's a lot more rewarding."

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