A COMMUNITY centre is preparing to offer visitors a new urban garden area - with the help of criminals.

Walney Community Centre received a grant of £1,000 from local councillors Theresa Assouad and Anita Fell.

The funding was to be used to create an urban garden area in the courtyard of Walney Community Centre and Walney Library.

"The area has a lot of footfall from the chemist, the library and the community centre. However, it is very underused," explained Les McLeese, of Walney Community Centre.

"As a community organisation, we wanted to use the funding to maximise the benefit for the whole community."

In partnership with community payback, they are designing and building an urban garden.

Community payback is where offenders work on projects to pay back the community for their crimes. The number of offenders working on the project varies each day. 

Les explained that the main aim is to get the community to make the garden their own space in the future and help develop it.

He added: "The garden will have planters and benches for people to grab a book from the library and sit outside. A small children’s corner for children to play in. They have also designed a small dog hotel for dogs to sit in when their owners are visiting the chemist.

"Alongside this, we offer a food share scheme on weekdays. This is unused food from supermarkets that would normally go to landfill.

"As part of the development of the community payback team, we build a new market stall area for the foodshare items."

The team is hoping to officially open the garden on June 1 at 11am alongside the big lunch event.

They are currently seeking local garden centres or groups that could advise on the best plants to be planted in the new planters.