A group of 16 young people helped clean up an estate in Rothwell as part of efforts to 'put right' damage done to a planting area at a local community centre.
The planting area at the Rose Lund Centre cost £2,500 and was only built recently but was vandalised on Monday, October 5.
Local residents reported the damage to the Rothwell Neighbourhood Policing Team, and following an appeal to trace those res
ponsible the names of 16 young people were given to officers.
The parents of all the young people received a letter from the NPT explaining the situation and asking if their child would be willing to take part in a clean-up on the John O Gaunts estate on Saturday morning.
All 16 young people - the youngest aged 11 and the oldest aged 17 - turned up and took part in activities including an estate litter-pick and clearing an area within the allotments of nettles and weeds.
The young people spent a total of three hours working on the estate, with the assistance of Groundwork and Leeds City Council's Youth Services. Rothwell Town Football Club supplied refreshments.
Sgt Paul Denison of the Rothwell Neighbourhood Policing Team said: "The local community and our officers were less than impressed with the vandalism done to the planting area, and after names of the young people believed to be involved were given to us we decided to contact them and ask that they take part in some work to 'right their wrongs'.
"We had a wonderful response, with every youngster we wrote to turning out to help improve the local area, and hopefully this will lead to the youngsters taking ownership of the area and prevent further incidents of vandalism."
Sgt Denison added: "We take incidents like this seriously and could have handled it differently, including arresting anyone suspected of being involved.
"But we were not convinced that would have been the right way to deal with a group of young people who would not normally come to our attention. This was the common sense way to deal with this issue, and I think these young people and their parents will appreciate the stance we've taken."
