A group of youngsters who are paying back to the community have helped repair a collection of benches in a town's park.

Following an appeal for help on the Friends of Bold Venture Park Facebook page, the benches in Darwen’s largest park have been lovingly restored by ten young people from Blackburn with Darwen Youth Justice Service and Child Action Northwest’s (CANW) Community Reparation team.

And last week, the group unveiled the first of 60 benches that are in-line to be revamped at Bold Venture Park.

Lead Reparation Worker at CANW, Trevor Hannon, said: "Giving these young people new skills and educating them about the consequences of their behaviour is extremely rewarding.

"It’s very much a group effort between us and Blackburn with Darwen Youth Justice Service.

"There’s 60 benches to do in total and we’re looking forward to seeing them all finished and we hope local residents will appreciate the work we’ve done."

After Darwen Town Council managed to secure extra funding to help restore the benches, local businesses became involved and donated materials including wood staining and paint.

Deputy Chair of Friends of Bold Venture Park, Julie Manton, said: "Everyone in the team is doing a fantastic job – it’s remarkable to see the young people applying such attention to detail to their work and hopefully they’ll get a really good feeling from doing this and build up their pride in the local area."