Plymouth Waterfront Partnership (PWP) has teamed up with Community Payback to set up a ‘project for unpaid work’ which is helping to improve the city’s Waterfront.

The project gives PWP a free workforce to carry out improvements for just the cost of materials. So far, this has included painting railings and weeding amongst other general improvements.

Whimple Street, Buckwell Street and High Street, near Bretonside and the Barbican, have all been tidied up thanks to the project.

Work will soon be starting on the next locations, Elphinstone car park and Commercial Wharf.

Community Payback is a court punishment and a way for individuals to give back to the community. Courts sentence individuals to between 40 to 300 hours of unpaid work, depending on the seriousness of the crime and the service user’s record.

Diane Mansell, Chief Executive of PWP said:

“From our perspective, we love working with Community Payback as it allows us to deliver projects that we wouldn’t normally be able to do.

By only paying for materials it allows us to totally transform areas showing our Waterfront and the businesses in those areas the love they deserve.”

Community Payback look for the following features in the projects they work on:

  • Has a genuine community benefit.
  • Is visible and demanding of service users, so as to be perceived as a credible and suitably demanding punishment by members of the public.
  • Motivates service users to change their patterns of behaviour.
  • Increases the service user’s sense of worth.
  • Provides opportunities to develop new skills which are useful for future employment.

Neille Adler Placement Coordinator from Community Payback said:

“I believe that the project with Plymouth Waterfront Partnership meets all of the above features.  I look forward to continuing our association with Plymouth Waterfront Partnership’s Team and hopefully, they will be able to provide more projects of this type going forwards.”