Shropshire prison bosses urge community to use working parties of offenders

Ivan Carling, of HMP & YOI Stoke Heath, near Market Drayton, said working parties are available to carry out a number of jobs including painting and clearing roadsides.

The idea behind the scheme is that prisoners will be able to help out in local businesses or carry out community projects on a daily basis as part of helping them back into society.

Mr Carling addressed Stoke-upon-Tern Parish Council last night where he urged councillors and members of the public to make use of the scheme.

He said: "We re-rolled and are now a Category D/C prison and have working parties available where prisoners go out into the community and carry out various work.

"We have a lot of skilled people in there who can do things like bricklaying and plastering, and we urge people to make use of them.

"We have done work in Staffordshire but not a lot in this area.

"Because we are your neighbours we ideally want to help you."

Mr Carling also told the meeting the working parties would be able to carry out gardening work for elderly people, rather than just large individual projects.

"We don't restrict ourselves, we will have a go at anything," Mr Carling added.

"We don't mind doing a number of gardens and doing them all in one day. They don't have to be next to each other, just within an area we can easily get around in a day."

Mr Carling's proposal was met with a positive response by councillors and members of the public.

Councillor Sandra Birchall, of Stoke-upon-Tern Parish Council, said: "On behalf of the church, they have done a really good job before."