CONVICTED criminals carried out £150,000 of unpaid community work in Bolton in the last six months.

Community Payback is a sentence regularly given to low-level offenders in court.

Their work in Bolton ranges from street-cleaning to tending to parks and green space, as well as volunteering at cricket clubs and maintaining cemeteries and churchyards.

From April 1 to October 24 this year, offenders have completed 23,042 hours of unpaid work, worth £149,774 if paid at minimum wage.

Each group of workers can contain as many as 10 offenders, and more than 360 groups are formed in Bolton every year.

Cllr Nick Peel, executive member for both community safety and environmental services, said community payback was a "double plus".

Martin Cooney, Community Payback manager for Bolton and Wigan, said: “We are proud of the high-quality work that is carried out by offenders.

“It is work that not only benefits people across the communities we serve, but that also ensures offenders are being held to account for their actions.

“We also strive to ensure that the projects we carry out give offenders the skills they need to progress. This can contribute to stopping them from reoffending.”

An example of their work is a Westhoughton footpath, off Bolton Road, which was recently featured in The Bolton News for being litter-strewn.

The Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company supervises offenders sentenced to complete Community Payback.

Cllr Peel said: "On the one hand this is restorative justice for minor offences and people are putting something back into their communities.

"But it also helps us carry out work we would struggle to do otherwise.

"Community Payback groups are not just blindly sweeping the streets, they are going into problem areas that are overflowing with litter."

Payback groups also hosted a "Twitterthon" on October 30 to lift the lid on their work.

Mr Cooney added: “I hope the Twitterthon will help lift the lid on this aspect of probation and to demonstrate to the public the way in which offenders are able to make reparation for the crimes they have committed.

"For example, not many people know that they can ask for work in their areas to be carried out by community payback groups."

Residents complained to the council about the state of a footpath off Bolton Road, Westhoughton, after it became a target for fly-tipping.

The footpath, was littered with bottles, cans, food wrappers and a plastic paddling pool with locals claiming the path had not been cleared for six months.

The council also has a robust policy in place to fine people guilty of dropping litter.

Culprits are fined £50 �— but if they fail to pay the on the spot fine they can end up in court with a much larger bill.