Weir Estate Residents Association could meet one its major priorities for 2010, early this year following a new link with Lambeth’s Youth Offending Service (YOS). The estate is set to become a project to paint the railings across the estate by young offenders as part of their community pay back.

WERA’s Chair has approached the service to rejuvenate the tired looking railings across the estate, which have not been painted for some time. The young people who have been given a community punishment order by a court for varying crimes from street robbery to theft, serve their order by working as part of YOS. Community Pay-Back is a way for young offenders to give back to society for their crime, serving between 5 and 35 hours a week. The youths are always supervised by members of the YOS, and are aged between 10 to 18 years old. Youths will start painting the railings by the play park, brightening the area for children after years of neglect has led to the appearance of railings looking tired and run down. The estate will be the first project of its type over this side of Lambeth.

WERA now aims to work with the Youth Offending Service supported by the Safer Neighbourhood Team to give a new lick of paint expected to start later on this month as part of the borough wide ‘Fresh View’ programme to improve Lambeth housing estates. This is then expected to continue across the estate to paint the other railings across the whole estate. Dave McEvoy, WERA’s Chair spoke of his excitement at the new partnership “Our estates appearance has already been transformed and we now want to grow upon this and continue to improve our estate for the benefit of residents. I am thrilled that we can do this by assisting young offenders to give back to the community.”

The railings now stand out as Lambeth Living does not have the funds to paint the railings. Weir Estate which has the lowest crime figures for the whole of Lambeth has the support of the local safer neighbourhood team, who believe this is a great way to change the face of the estate while giving young criminals the chance to re-pay their debt following conviction in court.

Residents can rest assured that anyone who is high risk will not be part of the programme and those on the project are supervised by members of Staff from the Youth Offending Team which is run by Lambeth Council.

During a recent meeting, a member of YOT assured WERA that “Most offenders just want to get on and do the task at hand and get their time over-with, this is a great project to allow them to do that”

WERA will now seek donations of materials from the business sector and local contractors. Fresh View takes place where contractors target an area to clean it up. Removing graffiti and cleaning of rubbish and recycling bins. However this time Weir will get its railings painted in order to brighten and improve the estate for residents for many years to come.

Chair, Dave McEvoy added “WERA is striving to make our estate the best it can be and this is one more step to really making the area we live in fantastic for all those who visit the estate.” He also urged residents to get involved and support the project.

Young Offenders will work for about six hours and will be welcomed into the Weir Link for refreshments as a kind good will gesture by the Centres Trustees.