South Yorkshire Police chief visits Maltby community payback clean-up

Dr Alan Billings visited residential areas of Maltby as well as Coronation Park, to see the spring clean which is underway through a community payback scheme.

Community payback is a project run by the probation service to supervise people on probation that have been sentenced to between 40 to 300 hours of community service to make reparations 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: “When I visited Maltby I was astounded at the amount of litter that had been dropped that was making the streets and the park, which was full of families and young children, look unsightly.

“I had been asked to lend my support to the community payback spring clean over the next couple of weeks and when my office contacted them they were only too happy to involve Maltby within their programme of work.

“I visited during their first day and they had already made a noticeable difference to the park, having collected over a dozen bags in their first few hours.

“I am pleased to support this scheme which not only provides hours of community work for offenders to give back to communities, but also delivers educational support and advice which helps to get their lives back on track.”

Julie Odusanya, head of Barnsley and Rotherham Probation Delivery Unit, said: “This is a wonderful sentencing option available to the Courts. It provides local people who are subject to an unpaid work requirement the opportunity to give back to the community.

“It’s good to see the team being so responsive to local needs despite the restrictions the team are still working with due to the impact of the pandemic.”

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