South Yorkshire PCC, Dr Alan Billings, is encouraging organisations across the county to support Community Payback teams by suggesting projects to improve your local area ahead of the King’s Coronation in May.

Community Payback is ideally placed to support the preparations and post-celebratory clean-ups across the country, by sprucing up local areas and improving public spaces during a dedicated period of activity either side of the coronation.

Community Payback is a scheme run by the Probation Service to supervise people on probation that have been sentenced to between 40 to 300 hours of community service to help with improvement projects in local areas for the harms caused by their crimes. Offenders who are sentenced to community work can also undertake up to 30 per cent of their sentence in educational support and training.

Dr Billings said: “I’ve seen first-hand the impact Community Payback has on both those completing the work and the local areas they improve.

“The King’s Coronation will provide the opportunity for residents to come together and celebrate in their local communities and highlight areas that could benefit from a tidy up. Those completing Community Payback projects undertake tasks such as removing graffiti, clearing streets and parks of litter and decorating public places, such as community centres and buildings.”

Community Payback work must be of benefit to the local community, not take paid work away from others and must not make a profit for anyone.

Dr Billings added: “Community Payback projects are hard work, but the results can be very rewarding. They can help offenders regain a sense of worth and see that there is value and satisfaction in doing a job well – all of which helps in their rehabilitation. This is coupled with improvements to public spaces, which we all benefit from.

“I encourage anyone who recognises a suitable project to nominate it to the Probation Service.”

Nominate a Community Payback project for your local area here.