Top of the tree – Green and gold for Wigan YOT

When it comes to caring for the environment, you can’t get any better than Wigan Council’s Youth Offending Team – and that’s official!

The YOT works with young offenders who have been given community-based sentences on an array of woodland management and environmental improvement projects across the borough.

And now the YOT has received international recognition after being named amongst the winners in this year’s prestigious Green Apple Awards.

The annual awards are run by The Green Organisation and backed by a host of organisation including the Environment Agency. The awards are widely recognised as amongst the biggest of their kind in the world.

Representatives from the Wigan team recently travelled down to the House of Commons to pick up the 2007 top prize for Environmental Best Practice from top TV botanist Professor David Bellamy OBE.

In making their award, the judges said of the Wigan team:

“The community actions of Wigan YOT are getting well known in the area. Recent operations have taken place in woodlands and parks that have transformed them. Creating a dry and safe camping ground at a scout site, clearing and re-planting mismanaged woodland and enhancing a woodland orienteering course have given the youths great satisfaction.”

The award-winning project will now be featured in The Green Book, and the YOT will also be presented with a Green Heroes Shield in the spring.

YOT Reparation Co-ordinator Cath Lomas, who picked up the prize on behalf of the team, said:

“The Green Apple Awards are truly global and it is a real honour to win the top prize.

"There is a lot of really great environmental work going on in our borough and we are hoping for even more success in the future."

Cath added: "It is fitting recognition for the hard work and dedication of all the young people we work with and their determination not only to help improve their surroundings but to improve their own lives and future prospects."